Sea Foam
by moodiful819
Summary: It was, in hindsight, silly, he realized. A mere fisherman could never be anyone's knight. And with that, he watched as the waves crashed and bubbles floated to the surface above him. Kakasaku.
1. Prologue

Done for the kakasaku community's AU fic contest on lj. I started nine days late, so let's hope that I can finish by the deadline. Doozo yoroshiku onegaishimasu.

A/N: For those of you unfamiliar with mermaid lore, selkies (from Irish/Scottish lore) are seals that can shed their skins to become humans and put them on to become seals again.

Inspired by _The Little Mermaid_ from Disney, the story of the same name from Hans-Christen Andersen, and The Sea Princess and the Sea Witch from A Treasury of Mermaids: Mermaid Tales from Around the World by Shirley Climo. Dedicated to my friend Debbie who helped me find the book from my childhood, and the public library system that has fed my mermaid addiction for years and has allowed me to binge once more.

_Disclaimer: Do Not Own Naruto._

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><p>"So wait, you humans don't eat your catch and instead sell it to people who've never worked a day in their life and live far away for small metal circles?"<p>

Kakashi glanced down at the seal—mermaid. _Mermaid_ because today was that one special day of the year when she changed back from a seal into a mermaid—and looked up sighing. He had spent the entire afternoon trying to explain to his female companion the reason why it was important for the men in the village to catch fish. Though she now understood the basic reason, he wished the social and economical reasons behind the fishing industry had stuck because it made him sound a lot more cynical and snide as her teacher when she put it that way. (He was a much nicer guy. Really!) However, too exhausted to deal with another three hours of questioning from the spitfire marine maiden, Kakashi just sighed tiredly and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Something like that."

In response, his companion vaulted off the back of the rock she had been sunning on into the water and once surfacing, jetted the salty liquid from her mouth and languidly backstroked in the nature-made shelter of the tide pool. "I don't understand you guys. Back home, we ate what we caught and traded shells and other items for things we couldn't get ourselves. Humans are strange creatures," she mused aloud.

"You're one to talk, Sakura," Kakashi muttered softly into his hand, ignoring the heated glare aimed at his face. "I'm only being honest," he said in exasperation as he rubbed the back of his neck agitatedly. "Explain it to me once more. How are you a mermaid that got turned into a selkie?"

Sakura eyed him critically, annoyance swimming in her bright beryl-green eyes as the setting sun set her pink hair afire, making her seem like those temperamental fire goddesses he heard about from islands far away. Soon however, like always, those feelings melted away and she set about telling the story of how she became…_this_, starting from the top as her lids lowered and her mind swam in her memories, oblivious as Kakashi followed along to the story he'd memorized by heart and never tired of hearing.

"_I was born to Lord Dan and Lady Tsunade in the South-Middle Ocean not far from here,"_ she always began, waves of emotion crashing behind the reflecting pools of her eyes as she remembered her childhood—of happier times. She was the only child to the king and queen of a prosperous undersea kingdom. Because of her pink hair and green eyes, she was named after her mother's favorite flower when Tsunade had stayed in the Sea of Japan where she met her husband, and was lavished with presents and the love of her parents. However, her birth-father had suddenly come down with a blood-illness that poisoned him from the inside-out. No one could do anything for him, not even her mother who was a healer renowned throughout the seven seas. They watched him wither away as he continued to love them until the very end. A cloud shrouded the kingdom for two years until her mother remarried a family friend, Lord Jiraiya.

She grew up under the care of her governess, Shizune, who was also her mother's lady-in-waiting. Growing up, she often snuck out of lessons to explore the areas surrounding the castle or play with her friends because she hated studying. However, Shizune bribed her into coming back to the study sessions by promising to exchange lessons in healing magic and music for math and history. By the time she was kidnapped, she was proficient in the healing arts and knew over fifty songs.

Now, once in a while, her mother treated her to a trip to the surface—your human world—where they would spend the day walking on the shore and exploring. Back then, this was normal since all merpeople could change into human form and they had to practice walking on two "legs" in order to walk among humans, usually when they were young as to not draw suspicion from the land-dwelling humans. Sakura would look forward to these trips the most because not only was she able to spend time with her mother alone, she was also able to eat her favorite food: apples.

It was on one of these trips that Sakura had been snatched. Trips to the surface usually took place within the boundaries of the South-Middle Ocean, but as they were preparing to return to their kingdom, a sea-sorceress named Anko conjured a storm, tearing the two apart. From what she remembered from stories from Shizune, Anko was the student of Orochimaru, a powerful sorcerer who was defeated and killed in battle by her father, Dan. Half of it was supposedly because Orochimaru craved power; the other half, because he had been in love with her mother. After the death of her master, Anko had sworn vengeance on the Royal Family and the trip had been the perfect opportunity to enact her revenge. As the storm raged, her mother was flung back to the kingdom while she was flung here to a small fishing village on the European coast.

She was twenty-six when that happened. To put her age equivalent to a human—because merpeople aged differently than humans—she had been 13. Once here, Anko enchanted her to live as a seal in the cove where the witch lived, only regaining her mermaid form for twenty-four hours on the day of the Harvest Moon. Any effort to escape beyond the scraggly reef that bordered the open ocean would conjure a strong storm that would be too treacherous to brave and throw her back into the cove.

And so, she was trapped in the body of a seal, doomed to swim the same area of water over and over again. She would spend the rest of her days sitting behind the cropping of worn-rocks that sheltered the calm waters of a quaint tide pool large enough for her to stay in; she would never wander the shore in her human form again; she would never sing again; she would never see her parents again.

"_Instead, cursed to live as a seal by a small fishing village on the European coast,"_ she would finish, same as always.

The rest of the story was something they always left unsaid because they both knew what happened. After the shock wore off, Sakura was struck with the full brunt of her circumstances. Not wishing to live a life without music or seeing her family again, she decided she would rather waste away and refused to eat, even as the passing fishing boats prodded her with their oars offering squid and small children from the village offered her the vegetables from their plates (of course those times, she felt more like a convenient trash receptacle than a creature in need).

Finally, she felt the last tendrils of life pulling away at her body and let herself wash ashore, determined to die there when she smelled something familiar. It was sweet and heavenly and in her lucid state, she followed the scent, pulling her malnourished body along the sand until she smelt it right above her nose. Opening her eyes, right above her head was her treasure: a bright, shiny red apple held in the hand of an old one-eyed man.

The two stared at each other for a minute, not quite sure how to take the sudden turn of events as the seal stared at the one-eyed man and the man stared at the seal. Kakashi had only recently moved to the fishing village at the time. Having spent the greater half of the day discussing necessities with the mayor and avoiding new neighbor greetings, Kakashi had slipped down to the beach by the village to organize his thoughts and recover from the day. Not having eaten since entering the village a little after dawn on the cart of a friendly merchant, Kakashi reached into his traveling sack and retrieved from his pack an apple that he had picked up the day before when he suddenly found himself face-to-face with a seal. Judging from its gaunt figure and lackluster light-grey coat, he figured the thing was just hungry. Unsure of whether seals actually ate fruit—would the stupid thing die if he gave it an apple?—he figured if it would make the animal go away, he could part with an apple, and tossed it a few feet away. Watching the seal follow after it like a dog watching a thrown stick, he waited until he saw the animal start to bite into the fruit before taking another one out. However, as soon as he took out the second apple, the seal was hopping back towards him.

That day, all nine apples went to the little seal he met. Looking at his rucksack in dismay—nothing. Not even a cracker to nibble on—he turned his saddened, defeated gaze to the seal who lay sated on its back, a smile seeming to pull at its whiskered lips. He was half-tempted to snarl at the pinniped, poke it with a stick—something to let the seal know that it had just robbed him of his only food source for the day. However, the seal was looking a lot better than when he had found it. Its stomach was rounder (though that was probably from the nine apples it just ate) and its fur seemed to have gained back some of its luster.

"Alright, you can keep the apples," he told the seal. After all, he wouldn't have enjoyed eating a meal if it meant letting a starving animal die in front of him, and who knew? Maybe it impressed some deity into rewarding him with a meal later. "I'll just try finding something else to eat tonight, even if I was hoping not to speak to those new neighbors of mine until three days from now," he said rubbing his hand over the seal's belly affectionately, letting his fingers glide over the black spots in its smooth silver fur.

At the touch, the seal suddenly sat up and ran close to the rocks of the tide pool, its eyes suddenly wary. Suddenly, it occurred to Kakashi that the seal might not have been used to human contact though it was brazen enough to come this close to shore and stare at him.

Careful not to make any sudden movements, Kakashi waited until the creature relaxed and watched as it inched further towards him. It seemed curious of his smell now, not that he was surprised. He had spent much of his life living deeper in the woods and didn't carry the smell of saltwater and fish on him. Keeping his body still, Kakashi lifted his right hand up slowly to just above the seal's head height. Back when he was a child, he would often do this to his dogs to measure their personality, as well as their trust in him. Curious to whether it would scamper away or let his hand rest on its head, he watched as the seal prodded the palm of his hand with its nose before landing back in the sand.

"_**Than-k Yo-u," **_ it bellowed, stunning Kakashi into pause. After all, the seal had just talked…right?

"I should go find something to eat. I'm so hungry, I'm hallucinating," Kakashi muttered to himself as he bade the seal a fond farewell and picked his stuff up to head back into the village. He expected to never see the seal again after that day, but was not disappointed when he saw it the next day and the day after. The seal would watch at he cast his net and threw a line behind it into the water. Sometimes, it would go back into the water to cool off, but it never left his side and seemed to knowingly avoid the nets. The day after he met the seal yielded no catch, nor did the second day. However, Kakashi still treated the seal to one of the apples he carried in his sack after finding an apple grove a little way down the beach before going home, having unofficially tasked himself with keeping the seal healthy until it was strong enough to leave the cove.

On the third day after meeting the seal, Kakashi had set his nets out like usual and had been waiting on the edge of the tide-pool with his new companion—he couldn't afford a boat, so he fished from shore—but rushed home when he realized he'd forgotten something. When he came back, his nets were bursting with fish as the seal stood sentinel over his catch. Walking dazedly, Kakashi watched as the seal collected his catch and dragged it into shallower water. Spitting the ends of the net out to place a flipper on them so the catch wouldn't escape, it stared up at him with its large dark eyes and seemed to almost smile at him.

"_**Tha-nnk YO-uu!"**_ it barked up at him from his feet, and that was the last thing Kakashi heard before he promptly fainted into the sand.

Once he woke up and convinced himself that he wasn't crazy and the seal was talking to him, he listened to the seal's tale of how it came to be here—the first time he heard Sakura's story—but in hindsight, it made sense how the seal could eat nine apples without dying and maneuver his fishing net. Peering closer into her eyes, Kakashi could even see flecks of green on the outside of her dark irises. (And if any cynicism and skepticism lingered after that, they were wiped away when she turned into a mermaid on the day of the harvest moon.)

Since that day, Sakura never left his side—something to do with merpeople always repaying a debt. Really, she was probably just lonely, poor thing—and the two became fixtures of the beach. Because he saved her life, however, Sakura was determined to pay it back in full within her limited ability. Because she still had the ability to talk to fish, she made sure he always had full nets, which he repeatedly turned down, asking for only average numbers since he was unable to dissuade her from paying him back. When she asked why—"wouldn't you like full nets so you can eat a lot?"—Kakashi had to explain to her that by catching that much fish, not only did it damage the ecosystem since too many fish were being taken out, but flooding the market would cause the value of the catch to decrease, which lead to their many discussions of human society in all its dimensions. Though discussions on economics always seemed to go in the same circles, Kakashi didn't mind since he got to hear Sakura's voice get stronger as she used it more in conversation. Furthermore, he enjoyed the level of conversation between them as they debated the merits of their various differences in culture.

They didn't talk all the time. Sometimes, they would sit on the beach and the only sounds would be the waves crashing, the gulls cawing, and the munching, crunching sound of apples. In fact, the duo had gained a reputation and as such, there were unspoken rules enacted in their fishing village because of it. Kakashi was now the sole caretaker of the seal, the beach was Kakashi's fishing grounds, and the apple grove belonged (unofficially) to Kakashi—not that he much enjoyed apples anymore. After eating three years of eating them with Sakura, he'd grown rather sick of them. Sakura seemed to tire of them also, only forcing down the fruit because it reminded her of her mother. But on days when he had to leave the beach to venture into the capital (a three-day journey) to check the market prices on fish and restock his supplies, he always picked a bunch of apples and left them next to her on the rock to enjoy in his absence, and each time, she would be still on the rock waiting for him, the apples untouched until he returned and they could share the fruit together.

She would lose weight on the days he wasn't there. Though he had told the village children to feed the seal for him and picked enough spare apples to last beyond the trip duration, Sakura seemed to only take one from the children a day just to humor them before she waddled off back onto the rock and waited for his return by the apple pile.

It seemed that Sakura didn't talk to anyone during the time he was gone either. Though a part of him was glad that her voice, as clear and pure as a ringing bell and soft as the waning hiss of ocean spray, was his alone to enjoy, it pained him to see her so dejected and lonely. She shot down every suggestion he gave, saying the sardines were too chatty, the gulls too repetitive, and no one else would ever believe that a seal could talk. And even if they did, they might not be as kind and understanding as Kakashi (something he apologized later for suggesting).

Once, he suggested that she sing her sorrows away. It was the day of the Harvest Moon, and he was leaving on his trip the next day (he never scheduled his trips on the day of the harvest moon). By now, he knew Sakura was purposefully not eating when he was gone due to loneliness, and having heard that mermaids had lovely singing voices and loved music, figured there was no harm in suggesting it.

At the mention of music, something long forgotten seemed to awaken inside of Sakura. Her face suddenly glowed with joy and excitement and dragging Kakashi onto the rocks surrounding the tide pool, she drew in breath and summoned her voice to her throat.

She had been so excited to sing, to hear her voice again and not a bark, to reclaim another link to her home beyond the ocean's horizon and hear the songs she used to know by heart word for word…

So imagine her surprise when out of her mouth came not a song as lovely as a siren, but a sharp, hoarse bark like that of a seal.

Sakura, flustered, tried to dismiss it as nothing—that singing wasn't the most important thing in the world—that at least she could be a mermaid again once a year—but Kakashi had seen it. He'd see the hope on her face—the bright belief that she could own another part of her soul again—only to be wiped away by a hoarse seal bark, replaced for a brief second of horror and despair. He tried to tell her it was a fluke—that it was only because she hadn't used her voice in so long—but the damage had been done, and Sakura, with a wistful look in her eye, vowed never to sing again.

Fast-forward to the present, where Sakura was sixteen and Kakashi was about to turn thirty, and Kakashi could see that look was once again in her eye. Every harvest moon, it was like this. When she became a mermaid; when she looked out at the sea. He could tell that she was thinking of her old family and how they were doing—if they were still trying to find her—if they even remembered her.

She continued to stare out at the sea as the sun set further on the horizon, the first stars of the evening appearing in the sky. The light sparkling off the water's surface reflected in her eyes, as dazzling as any king's crown, as the setting sun dyed her hair a warm orange. If he listened close enough, Kakashi could make out a few bars of a song struggling to fight past Sakura's iron grip on her emotions.

The tide began to come in steadily. If it was anywhere else, the tide would've probably been up to his hip, but the cove seemed to buffer the moon's power in that aspect. He'd heard that the village never flooded despite its proximity to shore, and briefly, Kakashi wondered if the sea witch's magic protected this place as well as it cursed the young mermaid. Just then, something washed up from the water, brushing against his toe.

"A shell," he said picking up the small object and holding it between them. Her tail flapping against the rock languidly, Sakura took it from between his fingers and held it for inspection, smilingly fondly at the small item.

"Scallop shell. We used this as currency sometimes because it helps bone health. A few more and you could trade pretty nicely with this," Sakura commented as she turned the shell over and over under her gaze.

Kakashi chuckled and withdrew a few metal coins from his pocket. "That's why we work so hard to get these small metal circles," he said continuing their talk on economics, "Believe it or not, but we can trade pretty nicely with these."

Sakura, skeptical, raised a brow challengingly. "Oh yeah? Like what?"

"Oh…I don't know. Maybe this?" he said as he pulled a familiar bright red object from nowhere. Sakura's eyes widened to the size of saucers.

"An apple? But I thought you said these were out of season!" Sakura exclaimed cradling the fruit gently.

"They are around here—they'll be available later in the year—but they were available in the capital," he explained before ruffling her hair affectionately, "See? Those small metal circles aren't so useless after all."

And with that, Kakashi bid farewell to Sakura for the night, walking through the small forest path from the beach to the sleepy little fishing village on the European shore.


	2. Act I

Chapter two of Sea Foam. I realize, belatedly, that writing something multi-chaptered for something to be updated all at once is quite a folly on my part.

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><p>"So wait, people kill whales and women wear their baleen in contraptions that squeeze their waists into a shapelier figure, but then make them unable to breathe?"<p>

Sakura's face with a mix of horror and disgust…or rather, as much as any seal could express horror and disgust. Kakashi rubbed the back of his neck, careful of the knot tying the scarf over the lower half of his face. "Yes. Silly, isn't it? It squeezes the organs too. Not a pretty sight during an autopsy—not that autopsies are pretty anyway."

Sakura shivered in the water, sending ripples as she bobbed up and down in the water. "I am never wearing one of these 'corsets.' They sound like torture devices."

Kakashi merely nodded. The trends of the fashion world were a frightening thing indeed. As for how they got on the topic of corsets, whenever Kakashi went on a trip, the women of the village would ask what the latest fashion trends were and he would report back to them once he returned home. He had been talking to one of the women in the village when he guessed Sakura overheard from the water. When he went back to his line, Sakura was demanding to know what this "fashion" business was. Belatedly, he realized that while he'd been improving her understanding of language by teaching her reading, writing, and the art of making complex sentences—she only knew simple phrases and words when they first met—he realized that he never covered _all_ the facets of human culture in his lessons.

Not that he thought Sakura needed a lesson in clothing. She knew the basic words like "shirt," "pants," "dress," "shoe," and "hat," but teaching her anything beyond that seemed irrelevant. Though she wore a bra made of two shell halves and some twine out of modesty for his sake, clothing did not apply to mermaids. It was more a human invention.

"By the way, Kakashi," Sakura said batting a flipper at his foot, "why would a fisherman know about autopsies? You told me an autopsy is the exhumation of a dead body."

Kakashi's grip on his fishing pole tightened imperceptibly, but before he could answer the question, a voice from shore thankfully interrupted him.

"Hey Kakashi! Quit talking to the seal and start fishing, huh?" shouted a man with chin-length brown hair as he and the other men of the village shoved their fishing vessel into the shallow waters of the lapping tide. If Sakura remembered correctly, the man's name was Genma.

In retort to the hot exclamation, Kakashi narrowed his gaze and picking up his fishing pole, pointedly flicked the lure into the water with a delicate 'ploip!' Genma merely shook his head and leapt into the boat headed out to sea.

The two watched quietly as the boat drifted out to sea. "Why is he so mad at you, Kakashi?"

"He's not mad. He's kidding, for the most part—men will fling insults at each other to bond—but I guess part of it is frustration. They go out and risk their lives to bring back full nets while I just sit here and my net still becomes half-full. Even if they make more than I do, it's frustrating for them that I can sit in the safety of the cove and catch enough to live on, but they have to venture out and possibly never come back to their families."

"So that's why you only let me fill your nets halfway," Sakura said softly, staring into the water.

Kakashi patted her head reassuringly. "You're only paying me back how you see is fit. I don't dislike it, but I try to make it fair. You remember my fishing pole?" Sakura nodded. He carried it with him every day. "No fisherman ever carries both the net and a pole. It's usually one or the other, but I decided long ago that even if you help me with my net catch, I won't let you help with my pole. Usually, fishermen will just pick something from their net catch to take home, but I only eat things I catch on this pole. Even if I rarely catch fish on this pole, whatever I caught was with my own power.

"And Genma won't be mad for long," he reassured. "Once they're back on shore, we'll go drinking and everything will be back to normal. Besides, he was the first person to take care of you, remember?" he asked with a smile.

Sakura nodded hesitantly. Genma was the first one to try and toss squid to her and got all the villagers into trying to feed her too. She felt bad. Maybe she'd apologize by sending a tuna their way.

"Try swimming by their boat when they come in. I think they miss their old friend since I keep hogging you," Kakashi suggested with a sideways glance. Sakura blinked in surprise. It was as if he read her mind, but then again, after spending so long together, it was often that they could guess each other's thoughts.

"Okay. I'll do that."

"Good girl," he said before reaching into the tide pool and throwing her a crab—one of her favorites. Sakura leapt into the air, catching it gleefully before falling back into the water; the only sounds in the cove being the sound of lapping waves and the crunch of crab shell in Sakura's powerful jaws.

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><p>Kakashi frowned as he walked through the small game trail leading from the beach to the village. Though Sakura had tried to hide it, recently Kakashi had heard Sakura humming more than usual as she looked out onto the water. Though she was still traumatized by what happened the first time she tried to sing, it seemed that even if she was unwilling, her body craved music. Perhaps it was true what the legends said; that mermaids needed music just as much as they needed water to survive.<p>

But what could he do? The village didn't have much in terms of music aside from bar songs and sailor shanties, and Kakashi wasn't really a music-person. He could carry a few tunes, but all he knew were hunting songs and the forest songs he learned as a child. Living in the ocean, their music was surely different from the songs on land, but someone had to know at least one song.

The sound of low chatter made him look up, the sight of warm-lit lanterns and straw roofs greeting him. He'd managed to wander into the village square apparently, and he leapt back to avoid being run over by a chicken cart. Though the market was usually closed by this hour, there must have been really good business today since no one seemed ready to stop selling their wares.

'_Maybe someone here knows something.'_

He began at the bars where all the sailors gathered. While many of the villagers caught the fish here, the main market for fish was in the capital further inland. Though the fish would never be able to survive the journey inland unless salted, there was a port city just an hour up the road. Though Konoha fishing village had prime waters to fish in, the cove water wasn't deep enough to dock a large boat, so the fishermen would send their catches up the coast to be sold around the country.

When it was apparent that no one knew anything, he moved further into the heart of the town, asking the village stores and locals that he'd overlooked. Naturally, they wanted to know why he was suddenly interested in mermaid lore. Coming up with an excuse of how his sister wanted mermaid stories for her children, the villagers were unable to help, but offered to spread the word and wished him luck, leaving only the traveling merchants who were thankfully still here.

By sundown, everyone in the village knew about Kakashi's quest, so the merchants did their best to oblige. He went down stall by stall, organizing his path by their wares. All the fish merchants hadn't a clue, just like the herbalists and farmers, leaving only the trinket vendors.

"Excuse me. Would you happen to know any mermaid songs? My sister wants some to add to my niece's story collection and I'd be grateful for the help," he asked the crystal vendor. By now, all the children that had been wandering the streets were tucked in bed and those who remained in the village were either residents or people staying at the inn.

The crystal vendor shook his head sadly; he had no stories. Sighing, Kakashi thanked him for his time and was off to the next vendor when a voice spoke.

"I know mermaid songs."

Kakashi had been so arrested by the voice that his heel ground audibly to a halt in the dirt. Turning to look at the owner of the voice behind him—to the first person who had what he needed—he found a young woman looking at him with a mysterious smile. Her lips gleamed ruby red in the lantern light; her dark hair, held up by a comb made of whale ivory, blew gently in the evening breeze. Dimly, he realized the top of her head barely reached his shoulder.

"I can teach you them…for a price." As she said this, she licked her lips, eyeing him appreciatively. Instantly, his grateful gaze turned wary. He'd met women like her in the past.

"I can't give you what you want," he told her, his gaze firm. The woman threw her head back and laughed deeply. Mockingly.

"You think I want _that_? My good sir, I only need you to help me with some chores. Besides, look at our difference in size. If anything, I should be afraid of you," she said with a toothy grin, but her eyes flashed in the night, a predatory air surrounding her.

Kakashi weighed his options. He didn't trust this woman at all, but she was the only one who seemed to know mermaid songs. If he could teach even one to Sakura, she could reclaim part of herself again. She might even smile again when she looked at the sea.

"What's your price?"

"I'll teach a line a week—of any song you want. In exchange, come to my hut on the northern-most part of the shore every Thursday. I'll give you your tasks then," she explained before extending her hand, a brow raised challengingly. "Do we have a deal?"

Her voice was as smooth and alluring as satin. Behind the salt and sea water, the scent of crushed violets clung to her skin. Her smile was dark, challenging, bearing too much confidence for a woman of her age and height, and for the briefest second, Kakashi thought he saw a shadowy figure glide across the lantern light behind her. Everything was screaming at him to walk away—to look somewhere else—that surely another person would hold the answers he was looking for—but it was so tempting…

And then a picture of Sakura smiling sadly out onto the water crossed his mind. His hand held the stranger's firmly.

"You have your deal," Kakashi said firmly. "What's your name?"

To this, the woman laughed. "Silly Kakashi. Does it matter? You only want one thing from me."

And with that, the woman slipped her hand from his grasp, pulled the hood of her cloak over her head and walked away, leaving Kakashi alone in the night. Around him, the market had begun closing its stalls and packing up for the night. Kakashi stared at the hand he'd used to seal the deal. Vaguely, somehow he felt as if he'd sold his soul to the woman. And in some ways, perhaps he had since he now had to lie to Sakura about his whereabouts every Thursday.

'_It's for the best.'_ After all, if he had sold his soul, he'd done it for Sakura. It seemed like everything he did now was for her. If she had one day asked for him to kill someone for her, he probably would. And if this one little lie would bring back her smile on the one day of a year that she regained her form, then he could live without his soul.

And with that, he began to walk back to his small cottage, unaware of the eyes watching him from the woods, a dark predatory smile gleaming from the forest.

* * *

><p>"You know, if you keep wearing that mask, you're going to get weird tan lines."<p>

At Sakura's warning, Kakashi merely smiled. "That's why I wear this straw hat," he said, pointedly tipping the accessory at her. Sakura merely huffed, her nostrils flaring slightly as she let her body bob straight up-and-down in the water, something she always did when she was annoyed or irritated. Kakashi merely shook his head and tossed a stone onto the water, watching as it skipped over the gently lapping waves.

"Do you have to go?" she asked at last, her mood over as she stared at him with large, pleading eyes. Kakashi smiled gently down at her from behind his mask.

"Yes. Remember how I told you I got a job doing handiwork for someone in the village? I need to go there once a week, but I'll be back tomorrow. I promise," he said giving the same explanation he gave every week since starting the job eight weeks ago. Sakura nodded her head. He'd explained it in full the first time; how there was a woman who needed help fixing her roof and he was the only one who could help, and because of how she paid, he could afford to get Sakura something especially nice the next time he went into town. She was confused why he needed more money—she could just talk a few tuna into his net if he really needed it—but Kakashi explained it wasn't the money he was after, and the matter was dropped. Even if she was still devastated every time he left her, even Sakura understood Kakashi wouldn't budge on this issue. (He was stubborn like that.)

"You won't work on the Harvest Moon day, right?" Sakura asked. Kakashi noticed a hint of anxiety in her voice as she asked, and saw that she was genuinely concerned at the prospect of him not being here on her special day since it'd fallen on a Thursday this year.

"I'll ask for the day off if I still have to work, but I don't think it should take that long. I'll probably be done with the job by then." When she continued to look at him worry, Kakashi lowered his head, letting his lips brush over her the top of her head. "I'll be here for the Harvest Moon. I promise," he reassured before leaving for his client's house. Only when she was sure that he would not turn back and see her did Sakura raise a flipper in an attempt to touch where he'd kissed her, a small blush under her grey fur.

* * *

><p>The woman was already waiting for him by the time Kakashi reached the top of the small cliff his client lived on. It was a quaint stone cottage situated in front of a sheer cliff side. A small vegetable garden stood guard on the right side of the cottage as a white fence marked the perimeter, leaving a small opening where an unkempt path led to the natural platform carved out of sandstone by the waves. A gust of wind blew, sending the collection of glass bottles strung together on her fence clacking and clinking together.<p>

"So what's the job this week?" he asked blandly, his hands in his pockets. Like every week, he was ready to get the job over with as soon as he started. The first one was to repair her leaking roof. Another job required him to fix her fence, while another was to weed her vegetable garden. Though he was still suspicious of her motives, it appeared that the woman really did need help with handiwork for her cottage.

"Aw, you're no fun, Kakashi. Why not relax a little?" the woman said, tracing the hem of her shirt in a tantalizing manner.

"No. I'm quite well-rested and I have a few matters to take care of back in the village once this is over, so I'd rather just get my task for the week."

An irritated growl escaped his client—not that he'd been fazed by it. It was a fairly regular occurrence now since he had continued to rebuff her advances—and she narrowed her gaze. "Fine," she barked, "Build me a new cabinet for my things! Five shelves! Your supplies are over there!" And with that, she stormed into the cottage. Kakashi, nonplussed by the tantrum, shrugged and picked up the hammer.

'_At least I can work in peace now.'_

* * *

><p>Anko gnawed on her finger nervously behind the draped windows of her cottage. Damn it, this wasn't going according to her plan at all.<p>

It was simple, really. After Sakura was turned into a seal, Anko had expected her to waste away, maybe lay herself in front of a boat to kill herself at the prospect of never going home to her family again—feel an ounce of the despair Anko felt when Dan killed her master. Human interventions had been expected—those foolish mortals were always meddling in things that didn't concern them—but for Sakura to recover, to find _hope_ in a _**human**_ insulted her entire scheme for vengeance. However, she consoled herself. The girl was still stuck as a seal and could never make it out of the cove alive. She would never meet her family again, and happiness would continue to elude her like shadows on the wall. Even as she gained a friend in her hired help, they could never be together.

But they wanted to. It was plain to see. The longing gazes, the endless streams of favor, the loving gestures that sickened her to her stomach. There was nothing so disgusting to Anko like a couple in love. Sickness and misery, that was what the world needed because the ideals of happiness and love, of joy and adoration, of fidelity were a fool's pipe dream. Dreams, happiness—those things were child's play. Children dreamed. This was reality, and _no one_ dreamed in reality.

So she schemed of how to tear them apart, break their happiness over her knee and rip it apart bit by bit in her hands. She thought of cursing Kakashi, torturing him, _killing him_, but really, why waste such a lovely face?

But fortune is kind on occasion. Though she normally avoided the village like the plague—stupidity was contagious down there, and being with those insipid mortals and having contact with them was something of horror to her—Anko had run out of a few key items needed for potion-making and was forced to venture into the bowels of her personal hell when what did she hear, but Kakashi's hopeless quest ringing in her ear?

It was perfect, really. She'd been looking for a way to crush the young girl's spirit, and what was more painful to bear—more horrid than death—than watching the person you trusted—the person you loved…with another? She'd be able to have her way with a handsome man and break Sakura all in one go. Even better, once her fun was done, she could kill Kakashi as well. Just to put the final nail in her coffin.

So she struck a deal with Kakashi. He'd come over to her house and she'd seduce him into loving her. After all, seducing men was something Anko could do in her sleep. No man could resist her charms—but that damned man! He let her offers bounce off of him harmlessly, apparently unfazed by even her best tricks. Not even her potions worked (though she suspected he never actually drank anything she offered him), and what was worse, she was running out of chores for him to do.

Perhaps it was partly her fault. After all, she could've fed him pig slop as a mermaid song, but she hadn't been paying attention the first day and had accidentally shown him the book where the mermaid songs were kept. Now, whenever he finished, she had to feed him line after line of the song he'd bookmarked. The man even made her swear an oath of the highest order for the page to be untouched by her; and at the risk of being smote by lightening by Neptune whenever she stepped out of her house, she had to keep her word. Bollocks.

It was foolish of her, she knew—she'd essentially shot her foot, then stuffed it in her mouth to choke herself—but something in her told her that this man was not to be trifled with—that he was not all that he appeared to be; which was part of the fun, really. Even so, there was a small consolation. She had some inkling to his purpose of learning a mermaid's song—probably for that stupid girl—but the song he was looking for would not be finished by the harvest moon for her to sing. He'd be in the palm of her hand for at least a few more months before the song ended.

Idly, her finger traced a small painting in the locket she kept around her neck of her late master, Orochimaru. Oh, how she missed her master. After all, he was the man who took her in and taught her magic. He'd shown her everything in life. He showed her the folly of man, showed her the carnal pleasures in life, how to kill—how to _hate._

An image of Dan's face flashed behind her eyes. Her lips curled into a snarl, but before she could act on her sudden bout of rage, a knock came at the door.

Smoothing any hair that had flown out of her comb, Anko calmed herself and cleared her throat. "Come in."

"I've finished the task. Where shall I put it?" Kakashi asked, bringing in the crude shelving unit. It wasn't much to look at, but it did the job and would certainly hold anything the woman put in it.

"Oh, help me transfer the items from over there to the new shelf. I'll give you an extra line if you do. And don't worry about the old shelf. I'll just turn it into firewood," she told him, waving her hand towards the corner where a collection of small vials stood.

Wordlessly, Kakashi set forth on his task, the sound of clinking bottles and the dull "thunk" of the vials hitting the wood ringing out in the small cottage. "Once I'm done, I will take my fee and leave. Also, I will be taking the day of the harvest moon off."

At the mention of the harvest moon, Anko suddenly tensed. If she wanted to torture the girl, the two couldn't meet that day.

"Are you going to go to the festival?" she asked. "I'm sure I can offer far more _interesting activities…_"

As she spoke, she pressed her body to him, her breasts flush into his back as she ran her hand up his leg. When he didn't react, only staring straight ahead with the even-paced clicks of vials being shelved ringing between them, she tried her luck further, pressing kisses into his skin as she opened her bodice, pushing her full flesh against him as she ran her hand up his inner thigh when suddenly…he stopped, catching her hand in his. The smile had just settled on her lips when he suddenly turned about, all thoughts of conquest evaporating as she realized that his eyes smoldered with not lust, but rather anger.

"Though I am flattered by the attention, I came here for only one reason. And while I feel that I have humored you enough now, know that my patience for your trifles wears thin." His voice was a bare whisper, his lone eye a mere slit as he slipped his hold from her, leaving white fingerprints in his wake. Crossing over to the desk across the cottage, Kakashi hurriedly copied the next two lines from the book on top of the stack on the desk. Muttering that he was terminating his services to her as of today, he left, slamming the door shut and making the entire cottage shudder.

And only when the quake subsided and she was sure he was gone did Anko slide onto the floor and dare to breathe.

* * *

><p>Kakashi watched as the dawn crawled across the room, sending the shadows from the ivy clinging to his window skittering across his ceiling. He hadn't been able to sleep the entire night, instead lying awake trying to figure out what to do. Today was the day of the Harvest Moon, the day that Sakura was supposed to turn back into a mermaid and he was supposed to give her the song he'd found. But temper and pride had intervened and he was now left with only ten lines—barely enough for use of anything.<p>

"Damn it…"

The curse, softly hissed, floated to the rafters like spirits escaping the light, hanging there in the thin silence that cloaked his home. Regret and disappointment were consuming him. If he'd held his tongue—cooled his head, he might have gotten the end of the song by now (because surely the song could not be that long)—but now he had nothing but a pittance to offer.

But what was he supposed to do? His client was playing him for a cheap whore. Even if he was desperate, he wouldn't sell his pride to her.

But hindsight is a funny thing, and in the silence of his cottage, he contemplated how far he would've gotten had he taken the unspoken deal. If he had slept with her for an additional line, he may well have been finished by now with days to spare. It would've been easy. Just another description of the job, but deep inside, he knew he could never take it. Even if he'd already sold his services to that woman, he could never do anything to betray Sakura. He'd rather skin himself alive.

Suddenly, a knock came at the window. Throwing his legs over the side of his bed, he crossed the small bedroom to the window, cracking it open. His eye widened in surprise.

"What are you doing here?"

"I have an emergency. My chimney collapsed and I know you quit, but I need help and you're the only one I trust. I'll pay you anything. I'll even give you the rest of the song, no questions asked," pleaded the dark-haired woman. Her eyes were glossy with tears, her cloak was hugged tightly around her in a bid to protect herself from the early morning cold, and on her left cheek, a large soot stain marred her pale skin.

Kakashi debated the matter in his head, rubbing his neck in agitation. On the one hand, this could be another ploy to try and seduce him, but perhaps she really did need the help. No one in their right mind would come out this early to a man's house and endanger their reputation if they weren't in dire need, and she would need to be able to set a fire as the fall months entrenched themselves deeper into the land. He had to help. Kakashi may have had a reputation in the village for being a lazy cheapskate who was habitually late (except when it involved the seal) and hated socializing when unneeded, but he was still a chivalrous man and couldn't let a woman suffer if he could help.

But a part of him was dragging its heels, kicking and screaming in the dirt. It didn't want to go. His gut was telling him to stay—to damn reputation because he could always build another one. He had experience, after all—because he couldn't trust that woman. All the lies to just get him into her home, into her bed. It would be foolish—madness—to go back when every fiber in his being fought for self-preservation and to just _stay away from this woman. This tart. This harlot. _

But the song…_to finish the song…_Unbidden, his gaze flicked to the sheet of paper on his bedside table.

'_Sakura…'_

"I'll do it," he answered at last, the feeling of a noose tightening around his throat inescapable.

"Great. Meet me an hour past noon at my house on the hill. The key is under the rock near the windowsill."

And with that, he closed his window and stood by his bed, staring into the mattress, feeling as though death knells rang all around him.

* * *

><p>Kakashi arrived fifteen minutes late to the woman's house. Though usually when he was late for an appointment, he purposely dawdled in changing his clothing, enjoying a little reading, or stalling to chat more with Sakura, this time was different as he debated one last time whether or not he wanted to go, the two sides warring within him. But stubbornness was one of the few flaws he was apt to admit and he couldn't bear giving Sakura anything but that finished song.<p>

He was doing this for her, and it was that thought process that made him fit the key from the rock into the door and enter the house.

The cabin was dark, the light taking on the starched tightness of mid-afternoon as the sun set lower in the sky from the season. It wasn't much, but it was enough to observe.

He picked up the floor plan from memory. Her cottage had an open lay out, the only door being the one he just entered from. Her bed lay in the far left corner from the door, raised slightly by a few stairs and a platform. Next to that was a bookshelf before hitting a corner, turning into a pantry and a table with a washbasin under the front window. In the window, dried vegetables and flayed lizards hung from a gnarled bit of rope that skipped over the top of the doorway. To the right of that seemed to be a pile of miscellaneous items flanking a desk littered with books and papers facing out to the ocean. Beside that was a large, sturdy wooden table she used for cooking preparation, the corner of it catching the light; and behind that was the chimney, supposed to be in a state of disrepair...

By the time Kakashi realized that the chimney was fine, the door had closed firmly behind him.

"You lied," Kakashi said lowly, more resenting than accusing. Smiling, the dark-haired woman circled him slowly, leisurely dragging a finger over his body as she moved.

"Maybe," she replied airily. "But my offer still stands. If you let me bed you today, I'll give you the rest of the song," she said letting her eyes trail pointedly to the blue book on the desk by the window.

He followed her gaze, eye transfixed by the blue book gleaming in the slowly waning light. If he slept with her, he could complete his gift to Sakura and return music to her life. Even if it sacrificed his morals, it wasn't the first time he wore the mask of a whore. He'd done it before, and he could do it again, laying there unmoving until the other person got what they wanted. Pleasure meant nothing in those situations when he'd only done it for one goal, and this was no different. In the back of his mind, Sakura's sad, mournful notes hung like glass in the corridors of his mind.

His client trailed her arms up his torso, opening the crossing laces at the collar of his shirt to reveal his skin. When he didn't stop her, she smiled to herself wickedly, spreading her fingers over the expanse of his collarbone and planting a kiss there.

Kakashi, on the other hand, was trying not to let his skin crawl. Disgust pressed at his senses, picking at the backs of his eyes like crows on a corpse when she pushed his sleeves up, opened his shirt more, and lavished his exposed skin in kisses that left him feeling a little more drained than the last. He tried the old tricks, staring out at the ocean horizon when the back of her hand skated the underside of his jaw, biting the inside of his cheek when she undid the fabric knot of his scarf, the mask falling gently to the ground between them. Like all the others who'd come before her, she gasped in surprise at the handsomeness of his face; an action that neither pleased him nor stroked his ego as he tried to erase the memory of her kiss on his masked lips and braced himself for their bare-skinned point of contact. As she trailed kisses up his neck, he wondered in the back of his mind if she found any pleasure in this—in attempting to romance what ultimately equated to a log or stone wall. She seemed a bit frustrated, and it was something they both seemed to realize as she put more effort into the kiss, attempting to draw any reaction from him. As she got closer to his mouth, he briefly wondered what her style of kissing was. If memory served correctly, he'd experienced at least seven different kinds during his term of active duty.

He soon found out when she planted her lips on his, biting and sucking on his closed mouth, more an act of war than tenderness. Desperation tinged the kiss, causing pity to well up in his stomach; she was so desperate that he was beginning to feel sorry for her.

However, she suddenly changed tactics and he wondered if she sensed his impending snort of ridicule when her kiss abruptly softened, turning chaste as she began to play coy with her mouth. Unbidden, the old hunting instinct of the forest awoke, poised to chase—to run—to conquer as she began to lead her head away teasingly. In the back of his mind, he wondered if kissing Sakura would be as innocent and provoking as this.

At the mention of Sakura, Kakashi's blood suddenly ran cold, regret darkening his system as guilt clutched his tenuous veins in its iron grip, he a mere puppet in its hands as the thoughts began to race. Of her tears, of her hurt face, her broken heart. He may have been doing this for her, but at what price? There was his own pride, but he neglected to remember that he had also sold Sakura's trust. He was deceiving her, lying to her face and smiling about it. Even if he returned music to her life, would she be happy knowing how he'd acquired it? How would she react, he wondered. Sad? Hurt? Angry? Would she ever talk to him again? Would she even forgive him?

His heart throbbed in agony at the thought. "I can't do it," he muttered softly.

"What?" the woman asked softly against his lips. Unmoving, he repeated himself. "You can keep the song. I can't do it," he told her.

Kakashi had been expecting a bad reaction. In the past, when his clients realized the truth, there were usually a few tears, insults, a thrown perfume jar or two; so he wasn't very surprised when she scratched his chest and pushed him back.

"Why _not?_" she seethed, nostrils flaring as she threw her hands at her side in an act of anger and exasperation.

Kakashi just looked away.

At his silence, a shocked, disbelieving laugh escaped her. The stab to her pride was evident. The blood from his chest was still dripping onto the floor as she spoke.

"What? Didn't want to betray your girlfriend or something? Aren't you cute?" she said scornfully before she sneered at him spitefully. "Well, doesn't matter. Even if you did give her the song, it wouldn't change a thing. She'll still be a seal," she laughed.

Kakashi's eye widened in shock; he grabbed her. "I never mentioned Sakura. How did you…?"

At this, a smile grew on the dark-haired woman's lips. "Who do you think put that curse on her?"

Kakashi's eye grew in surprise as horror gripped his throat, clawing up over his tongue and lips, threatening to choke him as she threw her head back and laughed; a mocking, malicious sound that bounced off the walls back at him unendingly, even as he threw her away from him. Disgust and guilt grew inside him like a parasite; he felt trapped and panicking, he made for the closed door, turning the knob and ramming it with his shoulder until it burst open at his force. Pain shot up his neck and his arm dangled uselessly at his side—he'd dislocated his shoulder, but the instinct to run away from this place—from _her_ outweighed any pain, any agony he felt.

And so he launched himself through the door, trying to escape like an injured animal from the belly of the beast. His heartbeat in his head, he began to run down the hill, much darker than he remembered it being—_how long had he been in there?_—as Anko's laugh chased him through the shadows of the trees and his mind. As he ran, he wiped furiously at his mouth, desperate to rid all traces of the vile woman off of him. In the back of his mind, the thought repeated endlessly. _He'd betrayed her. He'd betrayed her. _

But even as it looped in his mind, as the acid taste sat on his tongue and ate away at him from the inside, Kakashi refused to think about it—that he had betrayed her in the finest sense—instead running further down the path from whence he came as the Harvest Moon and Anko's laugh licked at his heels.

* * *

><p>By the time that Kakashi looked up to catch his breath and pop his shoulder back in, he found himself back at the beach by the village. It was late—almost midnight since even the light at the bar had been snuffed out for the night. In fact, every light in the village was out, leaving only the moon and stars to guide him.<p>

Slowly, he walked along the shore, hissing slightly when his feet, raw from running—met sand. As he was running, he'd lost one of his shoes while the other was torn beyond repair, leaving both feet bruised and bleeding from his journey through the forest. The waves lapped gently at his feet, stinging his wounds, but the cool touch of the water outweighed the pain and he continued to make his way along the water.

He found her on a rock bordering the tide pool. Her back was to him, her hair like a pale rose in the moonlight as her tail shimmered in rich hues of pale blues and greens, idly slapping and turning over on the rocks. He didn't even need to hear her speak to know she was disappointed.

"You're late. The harvest moon is almost over," she began in a quavering voice that made him feel even more like a bastard than before. Whipping her head, she turned to face him, the gleam of unshed tears held in her eyes. "You promised me that you would be here."

The sentence, hurt and accusing, was more painful than a whip on bare flesh, and more accurate than an arrow. In the spaces between, he could hear the things she hadn't told him; how much she looked forward to this day; how long she'd waited; how she wished that she had just given up on waiting for him; how pathetic she felt for doing so.

"You promised me. You _never _go back on your word," she spat through watery eyes and a quivering lip. "What the _hell_ were you doing that was so much more important than your promise?"

Silence stretched between them, Sakura's anger scorching the air between them as Kakashi reached into his pants' pocket. "I was trying…to get you this," he said lamely. Handing her the slip of paper, it dawned on Kakashi how pathetic and stupid this was, and had it been the time, he would've laughed aloud.

Sakura stared at him suspiciously before snatching the paper from his fingers, opening the neatly folded parchment and holding it to the moonlight to read.

"It's a mermaid song…well, part of it—I couldn't get the ending," Kakashi explained. In the back of his mind, he knew he'd left out key pieces of information, but he didn't dare tell her—didn't dare throw those barbed arrows to strike her heart in her already-fragile state. But that was a lie. Kakashi had already resolved to never tell her what transpired in that horrid cottage on the hill if he could help it.

Sakura continued to stare at the paper in her hands. "Why…"

"Because you've been humming. Even if you don't want to admit it, you miss music, Sakura, and I just…I wanted to give it back to you, even if it is only one song," Kakashi sighed, rubbing his neck in agitation as regret coated his tongue. "I know it isn't much—"

"I love it."

The declaration, so sudden and short, made Kakashi look up, watching as Sakura's small frame trembled with joy at the small piece of parchment in her hands.

"It's the song my mother used to sing me to put me to sleep," she said with tears in her eyes, touching her fingers to her lips as her eyes traced the letters over and over again, the memories traced and gathered like shells on the beach. A smile played on her lips as her fingers followed her eyes, her joy gaining momentum as she read the paper over and over again.

Then, suddenly, her eyes shut and her fingers returning to the top of the page, she began to sing. Her voice was bright and slightly unsteady, growing stronger as she gained confidence in herself, turning the words that had seemed awkward and thick on his tongue the one time he tried to read the text into a powerful melody. She sang about the sea, of the rolling waves, of the colorful coral and the kindness of the Mother Ocean. Going beyond the limits of the text, she sang of the colorful clouds of jellyfish, of the playful dolphins, of the serenity of the water, of the moon, the stars…

When she finally finished, chest heaving and eyes bright from excitement, he saw it. Her spark was back. She'd reclaimed a part of her soul back. He smiled.

Paper still in hand, she threw her arms around Kakashi and hugged him. "Thank you," she whispered softly against his skin. Even if the ink faded away and the paper melted in the water, even if she could never return home, the fact she had this song to console her made her curse a little more bearable. Kakashi merely returned the embrace, patting her reassuringly.

"It's fine," he replied softly.

Smiling, the two held each other for a little while longer when Sakura pulled away from him slightly. "Since you gave me music back—gave me my mother back—let me give something to you."

Under his breath, Kakashi chuckled. "Sakura, if this is another marlin, I don't think…"

"Not that!" she said petulantly, slapping his arm lightly for good measure. "It's something better than that. I'm going to fix your eye."

At her words, Kakashi reached up to touch his left eye tenderly, his fingers tracing over the long, thin scar bisecting his eyelid and trailing down his cheek.

Kakashi's eye was one of those things that lay between them, acknowledged, but never spoken of. When she had been younger, back when they first met, she had once asked about his eye. Unlike the lower half of his face, he never bothered to cover the scar on his eye and told her that before he moved to the ocean, he'd lived in the forest and gotten into a fight. As a result, he'd received an injury to his eye that left him not only a scar, but blind as well. Sakura, naïve as she was back then, just took it as another facet of humans she didn't know before and accepted it in passing before the matter was dropped and they never spoke of it again. That being said, for her to bring it up again…

"Sakura, wait. I don't think this is such a good—"

A pleading look from her silenced him. "Please Kakashi. You gave me something so wonderful…I have to pay you back. Just…_please._ _Let me do this._" His hands were caught in hers, gripped in a tight, beseeching tension that traveled from her eyes to her hands. Words of protest froze on his tongue. He was uncomfortable with the idea—didn't want her to feel as if she was indebted to him for this—but even so, he found himself unable to resist her as she seated him on his usual fishing rock on shore—a short, smooth rock the size and height of a large footrest—her tail trailing behind her as she knelt in front of him. Pushing herself up to stand over him, she tilted his head up to face her and brushed his hair back from his eyes.

"Just focus on me," she said as the waves crashed and lapped peaceably behind her.

"I will," he replied, not quite sure why, but feeling compelled to. Sakura merely smiled in her girlish, mildly-chiding way before cupping his face.

"Don't blink," she told him, feeling him nod slightly in her hands before smiling. As he stared up at her, he drank her in. Her skin, a milky porcelain around him, held him captive as the smell of warm days, fresh sea salt, and the strange floral scent that always managed to cling to her wreathed his senses. Her hair blew softly in the sudden light sea breeze, the pink strands wafting gently on the air currents as she stood over him, her head slightly bowed. Her eyes shut, he watched her serene face as her long lashes fluttered over her rosy cheeks and wondered what she was trying to do when he saw it. On the edge of her lashes, a large crystalline tear hung over him before he felt his head being tilted slightly higher and the tear splash into his snow-white eye.

As he blinked the tear away, Kakashi felt Sakura pull her arms away. He felt slightly dizzy and he groped into the darkness, feeling her hands catch his arm.

"I'm right here," she reassured, feeling him relax in her arms. Nodding, he waited until the dizziness subsided before blinking his eyes open, his vision crossing for a second before he shielded his left eye from the bright light of the moon.

Wait…he shielded his left eye from the light.

Walking over to the water, he peered into his reflection. The scar was still there and while his left eye was no longer white, it wasn't the one he remembered having as a child—now red with three black commas instead of the pure charcoal grey of his right eye—but did that really matter right now? He was staring at his reflection with both eyes now. Kakashi…could see.

Turning to face Sakura, all he wanted to say lay between them, uttered without a sound. That the legends were true—that mermaid tears could heal anything; that he was grateful beyond words; that she didn't have to. Sakura merely smiled at him. "The odd coloring is a side effect of the tear. Your eye will be sensitive to light for a little while, but it'll be fine once your brain gets used to using it again," she told him with a modest smile, as if she hadn't just healed his eye. The notion of "it's fine" hovered in the air. Still…

"Thank you. I mean it," Kakashi admitted quietly, grabbing her hand and squeezing it. At the gesture—Kakashi was not one for initiating contact usually—Sakura flushed prettily and stared at the floor. "It's nothing, really. It's the least I could do for you after what you did."

But even still, he did not let go. "You're welcome," she said at last, and smiling, Kakashi let his fingers slide from her grasp when the ocean waves suddenly got louder.

"Midnight is almost here. I should go back to the water before I transform," she told him. Helping her back into the ocean, Kakashi watched as she waded into deeper waters, her skin slowly turning grey and her scales shedding from her tail to turn into fur. Only when the last of her pink hair disappeared beneath the waves and a seal head bobbed in its place did Kakashi leave the beach, returning to his cottage in the village for the night.


	3. Act II

This is the second to last chapter. To be honest, I feel like I'm dying right now. My ideas are only stringing me along at this point and I'm being dragged in the dirt eating their dust.

Drama llamas in this chapter. Just a warning. Also, the violence and gore warning will kick in starting this chapter.

* * *

><p>"Kakashi…how do humans mate?"<p>

At the question, Kakashi nearly fell off the rock he'd been sitting on. Catching himself, he reseated himself and recast the fishing pole that had been knocked into the water by his leg. "Sakura, why are you so curious about how we mate?" he asked, voice tense with anxiety. His seal companion bobbed happily in the water, oblivious to his discomfort on the topic.

"When I was swimming out in the cove, I wandered near Genma's boat and he was talking about how he bedded a blonde woman from two towns over. He went into some strange story afterwards about different positions and screaming and hair-pulling after that, but that doesn't make sense, does it?"

'_No. If it's Genma, it does,'_ Kakashi thought with a sigh—not that he should talk since he kept literary porn stashed behind the covers of a carefully cut-out book that he brought with him to the beach every day. (The poor, misguided villagers all thought he was reading the Bible or something to make up for not attending church on Sundays. Pity, really.)

"Human sex usually doesn't involve that. Genma is what we call a 'Special Case,'" Kakashi began, closing his book and putting it beside him before debating how to move on with this subject. In the back of his mind, he was glad he never had a daughter. "You see, like most animals, humans have two genders. Those genders are determined by which of the two sets of sex organs they have. Females have what is called the 'vagina,' located between their legs, which is part of the organ that creates eggs. Males—like me—have a 'penis' which helps deliver sperm to the egg. Once the egg is fertilized, the egg develops into a baby, creating another human," he said before throwing in a few other facts to cover his bases.

There, that should cover it, and he waited with baited breath for Sakura's reaction, watching as her brows—or at least, where they should've been if she was in her mermaid form—knit with intensity. Inwardly, Kakashi hoped she wouldn't ask for any demonstrations. (Examples, he didn't worry about because she'd seen them before when the kids from the village played in the water during summer.)

"So wait, humans can procreate all year round, but they often don't do it to further their race? They do it for…fun?" Sakura made a face. "Human beings are weird."

"Well, humans don't operate by the same rules of nature that govern other animals. And there are certain connotations placed with sex in our society, such as religious significance and the idea that it's proof of a couple's love for each other. And don't knock it until you try it. It's supposed to be very pleasurable. Besides, how do mermaids mate?"

Sakura blinked. "The female lays her eggs in a protected area and the male swims by and fertilizes it. After the eggs are fertilized, they take turns taking care of the clutch of eggs until they hatch. Once hatched, they start developing like humans," she explained clinically before switching topics, looking at him with a curious eye. "Hey Kakashi…have you ever had sex?"

Kakashi laughed nervously and leaned down to pat Sakura's head. "Let's not worry about me, eh Sakura?"

* * *

><p>Sakura bobbed happily in the water before letting her stomach float to the surface, sunning herself in the gentle-moving current as she mentally checked off another day towards the Harvest Moon. Though she always looked forward to the Harvest Moon, this year was going to be especially exciting because this year, she was going to go see Kakashi's house.<p>

The conversation started a few weeks ago, when the topic of the Harvest Moon was just awakening in both their minds. The topic of village housing had been breached—mostly because Sakura had steered it that way—when Sakura asked to see his house the next Harvest Moon. After all, he saw her house everyday and it was only natural that she would be curious about human households after learning so much about the culture. Praying that Kakashi wouldn't deny her request—she knew it would be a difficult request to facilitate—she was overjoyed when he told her he saw no reason it couldn't be done and he would work on preparations as the harvest moon closed on them.

Now, the event was merely a week away, she thought with an eager smile and an excited splash of her tail before throwing the small mackerel she had caught earlier into her mouth, munching away happily. In fact, she'd been so engrossed in her lunch that she didn't realize she had drifted into the shadow of one of the village's fishing boats until she had to suddenly dive down to avoid being hit across the face with an oar.

"Did you see Kakashi's eye?" one of the fishermen on the boat whispered.

"If you mean the white, he's blind in that eye. He tries not to show it around though. Says he doesn't want to scare the kids," a voice she recognized as Genma's replied.

"No, it's not white. At least, not anymore," the first voice told the boat. In her mind, Sakura realized they were talking about the eye she healed for Kakashi as thanks for giving music back to her. Since then, he told her that true to her word, the dizziness had subsided by the next day and that he saw just as well he did before losing his vision before patting her head affectionately. At the memory, she purred slightly, preening herself a little. If she had been in her female form, her cheeks would've been as red as Kakashi's eye.

However, though Kakashi could now see perfectly well in that eye, he told her that he would continue to keep his left eye closed when there were people around. When she asked why, Kakashi told her that rumors would start and he didn't want to draw the attention. Though she hadn't understood what he meant before, she understood now.

"What do you mean?" Asuma, another man on the boat, asked.

"It's red now—like blood—with three black marks in it. I saw it with my own two eyes. Tarou saw it too," the man explained. "You know what that kind of coloring means, right? It's magic. Mermaid magic."

Suddenly, whispers rounded the boat. Some whispers were tame; merely commenting on mermaid magic and the confirmation of their healing powers being true, while others wondered how Kakashi could have met a mermaid while others wagered that he bought it off someone or that he asked a sea witch for help with his eye, only for the conversation to be interrupted by Genma's ferocious roar.

"Argh! Lucky bastard! First he just has to sit on his ass on the shore and he gets half a net's worth of fish and now he got to see a mermaid! Some guys get all the luck!" Genma bemoaned to the murmured agreements of some of the men on the boat while Asuma pointed out that he could've bought the tears from a merchant.

"How'd he hurt his eye anyway?" one of the men asked, the others nodding because it was hard to miss such a long, thin scar in such an obvious place.

"Maybe he got into it with a marlin. My cousin lost his eye the same way," one of the men on the boat quipped.

"No. He's originally from the forest and he had that scar before he came here," said Asuma.

"Then maybe he got it from a boar? Those things are vicious. My sister's husband lost three fingers to those beasts," another man said.

"I heard he lost it in a bar brawl against twenty men!"

"I heard it was fifty!"

"I heard something else," another man whispered lowly. "My sister, who lives in the forest, told me this, but when you think about it, it makes sense why he never shows the bottom half of his face."

And with that, the fisherman began to recount the story told to him by his sister who lived in the forest to all the fishermen on the boat, the passengers unaware of the seal listening in on the conversation in the shadow of the boat.

* * *

><p>The end of a setting sun at Kakashi's back, the lone fisherman whistled the tune of a popular children's song as he carried a bucket of sea water back from the beach, ignoring the curious stares of passersby as he did so—not that he minded much anymore. He'd had all afternoon to acclimate when he started gathering sea water earlier that day.<p>

The bucket swinging gently in his hand, Kakashi turned the key to his house door, pushing in firmly before closing the door shut with his foot. Walking over to the large metal bathing basin he bought the previous day from the capital market, he poured the bucket's contents in and inspected the water level, a few inches below the edge of the tub. Passing a hand through the clear grey water to check that the water was still cool, he shook the water off his hand before wiping it on his pants.

"Should be alright," Kakashi told himself as he looked for anything else that needed to be addressed before he went to pick up Sakura tonight.

It was here after long last, the night of the Harvest Moon. Though he couldn't say he was as excited as Sakura (even in seal form, she was vibrating with joy as she counted down the days), he had been looking forward to tonight as well. After all, it was Sakura's first time visiting his home and he tried to make everything perfect for tonight. He even cleaned his house, though it had been a thoroughly awkward affair since he did not have much to clean. Still, he tried.

He scanned his living room briefly. Here was where Sakura would stay for the duration of her visit. Though she wanted to see more of his home—and he had wanted to show her more—the tub he purchased wouldn't fit through the doorframe leading to the back of his home and Sakura needed sea water to stay hydrated. As a seal, matters might be different and it would've been easier letting her see his bedroom, but Kakashi couldn't figure out how to excuse a seal visiting his home while Sakura wrinkled her nose and frowned at having to enjoy Kakashi's house through the limited views of a seal, citing she wouldn't be able to see things high up and it just wouldn't be the same (which he agreed to). Sighing, Kakashi raked a hand through his hair and nudged his footstool over his bearskin carpet.

Books surrounded him on all sides. While it had been a simple fisherman's cottage when he first moved in, Kakashi had renovated it early on to fit his needs more. The endless racks for drying fish and hanging nets had been reduced to a small area near the window on the right side of the house by the door where he hung his one fishing net and rested his sole fishing pole, while the first layer of stone in the walls was taken out to construct built-in bookshelves to house the collection he carried with him in the move. The bookshelf, built with three large shelves under two smaller ones, surrounded half of the house, starting at the right of the left window to turn the corner and continue around another window before stopping at the next corner in the house. The wall across from the front entrance remained untouched by his renovations due to the cottage's already-large stone fireplace, only needing a good cleaning before he placed a few sparse knick-knacks on the mantle and hung an old decoration above it. Kakashi's small kitchen—consisting of a few pots and pans, really—sat to the left of the fireplace near the bookshelf under a set of hooks where he kept fireplace instruments and left a few herbs to dry. To the right of the fireplace was a stack of logs that sat against the wall under his collection of kitchen knives, small hunting knives and daggers, and his old hunting bow. The wall was interrupted by the entrance to his bedroom and study—one he had to remember to duck under slightly due to his height—before resuming for a brief moment to turn the corner. In that small area of space hung a worn engraving of two hands, fingers laced, a bundle of dried flowers and herbs standing petrified in the hands. Crossing over, Kakashi inspected the plants and made a mental note to replace them before passing a hand over his main table, sweeping his hand for crumbs before throwing down the scarf he wore over his face. Though it usually sat closer to the middle of the room—he did use it for cooking and dining, after all—he had to push it against the wall to make room for the tub due to its size (it could easily fit a man on standard height).

Running a hand over the lip of the metal basin, Kakashi briefly wondered what he would do with the basin after tonight. He'd been met with such envy in the town when he brought it back since bathing basins were seen as a luxury in these parts and almost everyone bathed in the rivers and streams in the area, including him, so it seemed a bit of an impractical purchase outside of tonight's event. However, Sakura might want to repeat tonight's event next year too, so he would have to keep it around. However, the only place he could keep the thing was either under his main table (and risk stubbing his toes constantly) or keep it outside. Briefly, Kakashi entertained using it as a trough for pig slop and wondered about how difficult it would be to keep pigs. Before he knew it, it was time to pick Sakura up from the beach.

Stepping out, Kakashi drank in the silence of the night before going down the cobblestone path that led into the village. Though he usually took the game path behind his house to avoid the villagers in the morning, it was already late enough that many of the villagers were home; or at least, weren't going to go outside to bother him.

By the time Kakashi arrived at the beach, Sakura was already there, patiently waiting on a rock with her hands in her lap as she idly flapped her tail. If he didn't know any better, he would've thought she was just a normal girl waiting for her boyfriend to appear for their date.

There were no words between them as he walked down to the lapping water and she wrapped her arms around his neck and helped him get a hold of her fish half, just as they discussed days prior. One arm supporting her shoulder with the other holding her where her knees would've been if she were human, he began to walk back the way he came. When his grip began to slip on her scales, Sakura shifted her hips and closed her arms around his neck tighter as he shifted her weight to get a better grip on her body. In the back of his head, Kakashi mused that whoever described mermaids as beings that were half-human and half-fish were right. Not only did their lower half have the form of a fish, but it was just as slippery, and he made sure to flash Sakura a grateful look when she tried to still the movements of her tail as best she could.

Eventually, they made it back to his home. Balancing her on his knee, Kakashi fit the key into the lock and pushed the door in with his foot before gently letting Sakura into the basin, her body sliding in with the graceful sound a single water drop falling.

"There's a bucket of water by the foot of the tub if there isn't enough water," Kakashi told her as he went back to close the door.

When he returned to her side, she waved the notion aside. "It's fine. The water level is perfect," she told him. True to her word, there was enough water to cover her body just under her shoulders if she submerged herself. Because the basin was slanted, her human-half reclined on the gentle metal slope while her hips and subsequent tail stayed in the deepest part of the water.

"Is your tail fin going to be okay?" Kakashi asked, pointing to the delicate, ornate fin hanging over the edge of the tub.

"It'll be fine. This form won't last that long anyway," Sakura reassured before propping herself up in the tub, drinking in the sight of the room.

"You must read a lot," Sakura commented idly as she turned in the tub, her eyes wandering the spines of the books in the walls. She always saw him with a book in his hands when he was at the beach, and recalling that Kakashi taught her most of her language skills, she wondered how many of these books had he pulled down for her to practice with and her hands began to itch faintly with the desire to hold the books and get one step further in being closer to the man who had given her so much.

Kakashi, who had been leaning against his reading chair near the fireplace, scratched his cheek sheepishly. "It's a bit of an obsession collecting these," he admitted. "But I'm no different from any of the other fishermen. Genma and Asuma probably read as much as I do."

"No. Asuma only has a middle-school-level education, and Genma never touched a book after his father finished teaching him the basics needed for the fishing trade," Sakura explained, having learned this after a conversation on the boat verged into talk of education levels. "To be honest, you probably read the most out of the entire village. You're actually really highly-educated for a fisherman."

"Is that right?" Kakashi laughed, a strange tinge of nervousness in his voice. "Well, you forget that I'm originally from the forest. Education standards are a bit different."

"But that still doesn't account for why you're so highly-educated. You told me when we first met that you were the son of a woodsman, but you said it yourself that people of a lower economical status could not afford to educate their children. Even if your parents did well in the trade, it wouldn't have been enough to afford a middle-school education."

"My parents were just lucky," Kakashi hastily explained, his eyes hardening slightly. Sakura, oblivious to Kakashi's increasing nerves, plowed on without remorse.

"But don't you see? That doesn't make sense. Even a quality middle school education wouldn't cover what you know. You know world politics, history, mathematics, science—economics. You know how to write and read well enough to have this vast of a library—you taught me how to write and speak and read! In order for that to occur, you would've had to receive a quality education—one that isn't available to regular citizens, meaning that your parents were rich enough to hire a tutor. Even excluding that, you said that you were a woodsman and moved to get healthier from the sea air, but you wouldn't have been able to afford to have this many books on a woodsman's salary—not even if your parents left you half of them; and they're old, so you can't have bought them while you were in this town."

"Sakura…"

"And you're perfectly healthy. You've never been sick a day that I've known you and other than your eye and a few scars here and there, there's nothing wrong with you. I never stopped to think about these things before, but once I heard the rumor and thought it over, everything made sense. Everything _makes_ sense. The level of conversation, these books, that bearskin rug…"

"Sakura, I don't think—"

"I know how you really got the scar on your eye." Her tone was firm and determined, almost accusing as her eyes dared him to say otherwise. "I heard it from one of the fishermen. You grew up the son of a knight, but worked as an assassin for hire. You killed anyone for a price, and your clientele were usually upper-class nobles who could afford you. It didn't matter who the person was—once the order was placed, you did anything you could to do the job."

"Sakura…"

"And you did it well—your belongings prove it. You were such an effective assassin, and you never left a trace. Your clients didn't even know where you lived or how to contact you without going through a maze of people first, but they knew you were good. Too good. You were becoming a threat because you now knew too much, so they framed you for a murder you didn't commit. Suddenly you were a wanted man and you ran."

"Sakura…"

"But they followed you and attacked you, leaving you for dead when you were found by a couple in the forest who took you in. They healed you and took you in, but once your former client found out you were still alive, he sent men after you. They killed the couple, and you killed the men—including your former client who put the hit out on you."

"_Sakura…"_

"And then you moved here to get away from it all. That's what happened, isn't it? That's what really happened. You're not really the son of a woodsman or anything like that. You're really a wanted assassin on the run. That's probably your father's coat of arms over the fireplace. You aren't denying anything, so it has to be true! What was it like being an assassin? Living in the forest? Running? Did you like killing people? Or were you doing it to survive? How did you get information on your targets? Did you follow then? How about the couple who found you? How old were they? Were they nice? What about—?"

"SAKURA!"

The girl suddenly stopped to look up at Kakashi from her basin across the room. To anyone else, he would've looked normal. One hand sat at his hip, one foot crossed over the other as he leaned against his tall armchair leisurely. His silver hair was tinged orange at the tips from the reflective light over his left eye, and he seemed to be smiling at her. He seemed to be alright, but Sakura could see he wasn't. Maybe it was because she'd spent so much time with him that she could read his tells, even if he didn't think anyone else could, because even at such a distance from him she could see his tense grip on the back of his tall armchair, the firelight bathing his white-knuckle grip orange while his smile seemed to be a thin taut wire pulled ready to snap. Perhaps he was trying not to make her feel any worse than she currently felt—chastened, stupid, foolish, small, like a child being yelled at by someone much older and wiser and less insipid with words, life, and people—but there was no hiding the pain on his face. She had hurt him with her words, as cruel and deadly as any arrow he could've ever fired, and it showed in his slightly-wavering voice as he told her, "Maybe it's time I took you home."

Immediately, Sakura's eyes widened and words of protest were ready to leap off her tongue out of her mouth. She didn't want to leave. She wanted to stay and explore more! But a better, wiser side told her that she shouldn't—that she had done too much damage today and really, what would she prove by staying? He was right, she realized. The moment was gone, all because of her stupid mouth. With a silent nod, she assented to the idea and lifted her arms out for him to carry her back to the beach. In the back of his head as he walked, Kakashi would later recall how lifeless she felt in his arms—almost like nothing, as if she willed her weight away to better shrink herself into oblivion.

Kakashi arrived home well after midnight. Though the path to the beach didn't take long, he didn't feel like hurrying home, instead taking his time after seeing Sakura back to the water. They had not spoken one word to each other on the journey there, only a small, slightly remorseful "thank you" that he gave a muttered reply to before she slipped away under the waves.

Closing the door behind him, he turned the key, resting against the door before giving a heavy sigh, trailing his gaze over the room wearily. Catching sight of the basin still sitting undisturbed in the corner of the room as he followed the small circles of salt crystals from where salt water drops dried when he took Sakura out of the bath, he scratched his head before letting it drop with a sigh. He'd take care of the sea water tomorrow—properly because he couldn't afford to dump it in the backyard when he'd finally gotten his garden growing—and began walking towards the back of his house when he felt his foot nudge something. Looking down, it was the bucket of salt water he left Sakura, lying as still and untouched as before.

Kakashi leaned down to pick it up, feeling its weight in his hand. He'd found the bucket in the shed in his backyard when he first moved in. He hadn't used it much since then, usually only to water his plants since he used a wooden bucket for his drinking water. Despite being a little beat up, the way it shined made it seem like the bucket was brand-new. Gripping it by the sides, he stared at his reflection in the water; at his orange-tinted silver hair, his pointed chin, his long thin scar, his blood-red eye. Suddenly, Kakashi's grip tightened.

It was wrong. Tonight was all wrong, he thought as his fingers locked tensely around the metal bucket, looking as if his hands would crumple it like paper.

Tonight was a completely disaster. He had imagined something different…that he would bring her home and just sit together as he showed her around his home, showed her more of human life, and pretended—he didn't know why, but he wanted to pretend—that for a moment that this could an everyday occurrence and be happy for once. Instead, his past—the one he'd spent the past five years running from—was suddenly spat in his face by the last person he wanted to have his past known to.

Beside himself however, Kakashi was impressed how much she found out. Rumor or not, she'd come very close to the truth. In the back of his mind, he told himself that he shouldn't be surprised. Sakura was just as intelligent as him, and it was one of the reasons he loved her.

Sakura had started her string of accusation with the idea that he was the son of the knight. However, she was only partially right. His father, Hatake Sakumo, had indeed been a knight in the king's service, but that was before his title had been stripped away for failing to ride into battle against a village in the East—something about not feeling comfortable killing women and children. But he supposed a former-knight was still a knight.

His parents never married. His mother had been a normal girl in the village near the capital kingdom where Sakumo retired after his title was stripped from him. After his dismissal from the king's court, Sakumo had fallen into a deep depression and his mother—despite her beauty and her intelligence—was the only one willing to take care of the pitiful man. Eventually, they fell in love—or at least, they liked each other enough to live together—and he was conceived. Talks of marriage had been in place as his delivery date neared, but they never went ahead with it by the time he arrived. Even when his mother died a year later from illness, their marriage plans had never gone beyond talks.

Sakumo had been charged to take care of his young son now that his mother was gone, but her death merely sent him into depression again and he began to drink heavily. From what Kakashi personally remembered, Sakumo was only his parent four times in his young childhood, and that was only when he was sober enough to remember he had a son to take care of.

His father died when Kakashi was four; he remembered because he was the one who buried Sakumo somewhere in the forest that surrounded their house before going back inside to play with his dogs. For some reason, though Sakumo couldn't even care for his son, he always found enough room in his heart to care for a stray dog. Not that Kakashi minded. Those dogs were his friends when his father was drunk (which was nearly all the time) and became his family when Sakumo died, raising him as their own until his father's friend, Minato, found Kakashi alone in the forest a few weeks later. After that, Minato adopted him and brought him home to raise.

Unlike his father, Minato was still in the kingdom's court and raised him with all that the position entitled him to. Kakashi was given the best of everything—the best horses, the best tutors, the best food (though Kakashi frequently hunted wild hogs to bring home because he preferred the taste), the best trainers—and he returned nothing but the best scores and highest awards. The king had even personally praised his ability to fight, but despite Kakashi's obvious intelligence and talent, the other knights refused to acknowledge him. To them, he was nothing but the bastard son of a failed knight, worth less than the dirt their horses treaded on.

It was then that Kakashi decided to put his skills to work as an assassin. It was obvious that in the tangled web of connections and family lineage of the court that he'd never become a knight, and since Minato had died in battle and could no longer help him, he had no friend left in the king's court. However, that also left no one to protest his actions as he began selling his skill for a price. Though some might have protested his decision (Minato, especially since it was he who instilled the knight-ideals of chivalry and had tried to explain his shameful father's reasoning for his actions), he needed a way to survive this world he'd been thrown into. What was more, it seemed more of a sin at that point in his life to waste such obvious talent in something as dreary and insipid as the life of a woodsman; and really, he'd killed pigs in the forest for food before. Assassination would be no different.

Because of his high fee—he was risking his life, after all—his clientele were mostly the upper-crust of the ruling society, and his job was mainly to eliminate anyone who could endanger that position, usually top members of the bourgeoisie who could be charismatic to stage a coup d'état, bastard children and their mothers, or rivals for power.

Like any good assassin worth their weight in salt, Kakashi made sure to gather as much information as possible, whether it meant sinking money into drink after drink for one of their friends or seducing a poor unsuspecting sister, virgin daughter, or all-too-knowing wife. They were always devastated once they found the truth, citing that their hearts were trifled with and that they thought their love was true; but a job was a job, and no one understood that better than his top client, Danzou.

Danzou, at the time, had been one of the king's inner circle. Wanting to become chancellor to the king, he often used Kakashi's services to edge out the competition. In hindsight, it was a miracle that no one figured out that Danzou had ordered the hits that was eliminating his competition left and right in mysterious "unfortunate accidents," but Danzou was a genius at plotting and hiding his tracks, and it was just that sort of cunning that Kakashi could get behind.

But all good things must come to an end, and once Danzou got what he wanted, he had to erase all traces of his old life and burn the blood-stained ladder he had climbed up. Kakashi would inevitably be one of those rungs on the ladder—as Danzou's weapon of choice, he knew too much and knowledge was a dangerous thing to those in power.

So while Kakashi was off on another mission for a different client, Danzou framed him for murder and placed a bounty on his head. He'd scarcely arrived back in town before he was fleeing for his life from bounty hunters across the kingdom into the forest. It had been one of the few times in his life where he could actually say that he had been scared for his life; he could still remember the sound of his bow string vibrating as he shot arrow after arrow blindly in the forest behind him. He'd managed to pick off most of the hunters, but was unprepared when one of the hunters—he believed the name was Zabuza—had headed him off, skewering him through with his sword. As the taste of blood filled his mouth, Zabuza took the small silver necklace Minato had given to him as a birthday gift as proof and left to collect the money. Zabuza had left him there to die in the forest and Kakashi probably would've if he hadn't been found by a newlywed couple who had happened upon the scene. That was when he met Obito and Rin.

Obito and Rin were from a small village at the northwestern edge of the forest. They had been childhood friends; Obito, it seemed, was part of a large, though mostly extinct clan with nothing to offer but merely a name and only enough to get by on. Still, Rin had accepted his proposal and the two married, setting off for a home closer to the capital for more work opportunities. They had scarcely been married two weeks before they had come upon a man on his deathbed, bleeding out in front of them. They didn't know his name or his background; and yet, they still felt compelled to help him as best they could. With the help of Rin who'd apprenticed under the village's healer, they stabilized his condition before taking him into their home and nursing him back to health. They asked for nothing in return, and it was the charity of these strangers that saved him.

However, he couldn't idly sit back and let these people who saved him just allow him to stay. So he helped with the chores. As the tallest one out of them, he dusted the tops of shelves and retrieved jars of roots and powders. He taught Obito how to track game and hunt; he taught Rin recipes for medicines from the castle; and he did everything he could to pay back the two who had saved his life and never even asked to know his history. When he asked why, they told him that his past didn't matter to them; he was just one of the family now. And at the idea of a family, of belonging to a group that obviously loved each other, Kakashi was touched beyond words and strived to help them in any way they can. Looking back, he could say that period was one of the happiest in his life.

But fate was cruel to Kakashi, and happiness was always fleeting. A few months after he was welcomed into the family with open arms, Obito was killed in a hunting accident. It was all Kakashi could do to not let Rin see the bloody, tattered remains of her husband.

They buried Obito next to the house. Once again, Kakashi was the one who dug the grave and buried his friend while Rin laid a string of daisies on the disturbed earth. After Obito's death, it felt as if someone has sapped the oxygen from their small cottage. The light in their life was gone—Obito's foolish, well-meaning antics would never be seen again—and the two consoled each other as best they could in a house that seemed to carry his memory everywhere.

With Obito gone, it was now up to Kakashi to provide for Rin. He took up carpentry to support them, using Obito's old tools. Unbidden, Kakashi's eyes flew to the carved wooden ornament he made for Rin hanging on the wall. _'Rin…'_ he began, only to cut the thought off abruptly. He didn't want to think of her now.

A year after Obito's death, trouble began brewing again. Having gained a small following for his woodwork, it soon leaked back to Danzou that Kakashi had not actually died in the forest. To exterminate him once and for all, Danzou sent team of assassins after him. They caught him on his way to his hunting hut, ambushing him. It was here that he lost his left eye, and after the battle was over and he was pressing scraps of his shirt against his wounds, he realized that it wasn't safe—that he had to tell Rin that they had to move because Danzou had found him.

Pulling himself back towards the house, he struggled to return home to warn Rin. She had to know. He had to get them to safety, but by the time he got to their shared cottage, the entire thing was engulfed in flames as a charred and blistered hand stuck out lifelessly from the slightly ajar door. It was too late, he realized, and he watched as the cottage collapsed on itself in an explosion of smoke, sparks, and flames.

After that, Kakashi didn't remember much. He remembered finding the other operative who set the fire and snapping his neck so hard that Kakashi had nearly pulled his head off; he remembered stumbling back to the hunting cottage and recuperating there, making that his new home; he remembered scavenging the ashes of the cottage for salvageable items and burying the bones of his new family; he remembered packing everything in the hunting cottage for a move, all relics from his old life as Minato's son and an assassin; and he remembered making arrangements for a house on the coast. He would start a new life for himself, he vowed. He would put this life behind him once and for all; and with that, he uprooted his life in the forest and moved down to a small fishing village on the European coast, but not before ensuring that all his old clients had been burned. On the wagon ride down, the driver mentioned that among the rash of sudden nobility deaths, the high chancellor had been found dead in his home along with detailed documents listing his role in a string of high-class murders as well as a report of his role in a murder for which another man was framed. The driver commented that no one in town had a clue who did it, but Kakashi knew that everyone knew. They knew because everyone had seen Kakashi's face before—knew of his work and were ready to piss their boots in fear of the retribution he'd given. The nobility were paralyzed with fear and though everyone knew that Kakashi had been the one who'd committed those murders, no one was willing to confront him. If not pursuing the matter and letting him go meant keeping their lives, then the kingdom was willing to turn their heads. And so, the bounty was dropped and Hatake Kakashi became a ghost on the wind.

Kakashi banged his fist against the wall of the fireplace, the sickening crack telling him he'd dislocated at least two of his joints, but he didn't care. He was sure that he'd left the past behind him. He kept a low profile. He made sure to take different routes to the capital and avoid any place where someone would recognize him. He'd hidden the lower portion of his face, kept his hat pulled low over his eyes—even used a different dialect when bartering, but it proved useless in the end. Sakura still found out and the evening was ruined. When he thought about the fisherman who'd spoken that day and revealed Kakashi's sordid past, he felt the urge to snap the man's throat over his knee.

In a way, it was laughable how easily his ruse had been destroyed. Though he could do damage control in the morning; smile, nod, and deny his way back into good standing, those only worked in villages. Sakura was another matter entirely. To her, what she'd heard was just another facet about him. It was how she learned, absorbing what she observed before pulling everything apart to study its inner workings. She'd done the same thing with the rumor, pulling what could be true and shaping it into a way that it'd made sense. She'd given everything as a guess—a shot in the dark—and Kakashi had every opportunity to deny it, to brush it off and sweep it back under the rug it came from, but no. Instead, he'd panicked and let his emotions show—let his mask crack and confirm all her notions as being true. What's worse was that he'd gotten angry at her when it wasn't her fault (or at least, not entirely), and what about him? Freezing like that when he'd been a feared assassin for a majority of his life. He tried to dismiss it, chalking it up to shock at seeing something he'd buried so deeply rise up again to spite him, but that didn't feel like that was it. It felt more like an excuse. Maybe it was because he'd heard it from her.

A bitter laugh escaped Kakashi's lips, now twisted in a smirk that was half-pitying and half-mournful. After all, when he initially agreed to showing Sakura his home, he'd wanted to show her a side of him that she'd ever seen—that few people ever saw. In a way, he guessed that happened tonight.

Anger began welling inside him. He felt like having a tantrum because it wasn't fair. It wasn't fair. Why did tonight turn out like this?

But maybe his expectations for the night had just been extraordinarily high? Every plan has the ability to go awry, but was a quiet night with Sakura too much? Was an evening spent discussing his book collection and the places he'd been to too much to ask? So what if he'd spent weeks fantasizing their conversations shared at the side of her basin? That the thin, frail tendrils of hope had began to coil around that picture of the two of them together in deep conversation and laughing? That he was and had been the happiest he remembered being in a while? Was that really so much to ask for?

His gaze returned to the bucket that had remained untouched for most of the night. Jaw locking, he glared at his reflection. Fate certainly had a fine way of mocking him, giving him something he wanted only to snatch away something larger. The injustice of it all made his blood boil. Why him? He'd been good for all these years, atoned for his past life as best he could, so why was it always him?

The thought spun in a circle in his mind, gaining momentum and stirring his anger to new heights. The fisherman, he'd deal with in the morning, but Sakura… How would he talk to her? How would he ever look her in the eye without some form of resentment in his eyes, in his heart? How would they ever talk to one another with the shadow of tonight hanging over them like a blade ready to strike? He didn't know what to do, what _he'd_ do because now the dream world was over. A indelible shift had occurred in their relationship—one that they couldn't erase—and he was now left staring at the shattered remains of happier days, unsure of how to greet the woman who had wounded his heart so fiercely tonight.

He hated this. He didn't want to feel this way; so confused, so angry, so hurt and so deceived. He didn't want to be angry at Sakura when she knew no better, but he was. He resented her for bringing up the past he'd worked so hard to hide, and now…now he didn't know what to think.

His head hung, his eyes scanned the walls. Suddenly, he regretted bringing those relics of his old life. The books from Minato, his father's old coat of arms, the wooden carving on the wall all seemed to be mocking him. Staring at the two-handed carving he'd made for Rin, he frowned; those flowers could shrivel up and turn to dust for all he cared now.

The bucket swung idly in his hand at its handle. The weight constantly shifting, he stared deep into the fire for answers, but all he found was the image of the cottage collapsing playing over and over again. The old demons had found a way out and were now playing him for all that he was worth, like a fool. Anger and outrage tasted thick and black on his tongue as the raving voice in his mind continued the tirade in his head that it wasn't fair. It really wasn't. It wasn't fair. Why couldn't tonight be perfect? Why did it have to be tonight? Why did she have to open her mouth?

Images of the cottage collapsing played behind his eyes. He couldn't erase it, no matter how hard he tried while the bookshelf walls seemed to move in, trapping him in that hunting cottage he'd sat in as he plotted his revenge, the other time in his life when things seemed to be inextricably unfair.

'_It's not fair. Things are still unfair,'_ the voice in his head ranted as his grip on the bucket became looser—swinging higher as the sound of collapsing wood and exploding sparks filled his ears. The fireplace was mocking him. This house was mocking him.

He stared into the bucket, looking at his reflection. His features were hardened now, his gaze smoldering with the rage he still felt at it all. Out of the corner of his eyes, he could see his hands twisted into a white-knuckle grip on the side of the bucket and he regretted it. He regretted being able to see—regretted Sakura for giving him his eye back—and he regretted that thought as soon as it appeared, staring into his blood-red eye as the faint glow of the fire in the fireplace reflected into the water. Instantly, the collapsing cottage was playing out over his eyes as Sakura's curious eyes stared up at him with eager adoration _and that arm. Rin's arm…_

Kakashi watched, his body locked, as the last sparks of the fire leaped off as a last-ditch effort to survive as the bucket—previously full of sea water—clattered noisily on the stones of the fireplace, slowly spinning itself to an end. Where cold sea water met the still-intense heat of the logs, angry hissing clicks echoed into the night, chorusing in time with Kakashi's heaving chest and beating heart. In the darkness of the cabin, the smell of sea water and burnt wood filled the air as salt crystals decorated the logs like grains of sugar, glistening like stars in the night sky. His breath echoing off the walls, Kakashi drank in the sudden silence as he watched the smoke of the fire curl towards the sky. If he listened closely enough, he could hear the sound of crickets chirping and the gentle lapping of the waves.

He stood there for a moment in the darkness, watching as the last bit of life died out in the fire, his body still tense as he listened to the faint whining sound of steam in the logs. Staring into the small huddled mass of charred wood, Kakashi listened to the last cracks and sizzles of the dying fire before finally storming off to bed for a restless night of sleep.

* * *

><p>Sakura waded sadly in the water, a cheek pressed against the tide pool as she waited for Kakashi's arrival on the beach. While he was now venturing onto the beach—he hadn't shown up the first three days after the harvest moon—he never spoke a word to her, instead staring out at the water's horizon. He even ignored the greetings of the boats heading out to sea, and while they had shared silences before, never had they been so cold and tense.<p>

She supposed it was her fault—she'd obviously pried into a sensitive matter for Kakashi—and while she hadn't known it was sensitive beforehand, she should've at least read the signs instead of plowing on in her own eagerness to learn more about him. As a friend, she owed him that respect—should've realized that she'd hurt him by prying into something that was obviously personal—and for that, she was sorry. She was truly and deeply sorry, but even then, she still had yet to apologize to him because he wasn't talking to her and to be honest, she wasn't quite sure how to bring it up, despite thinking it over for days.

A sad crooning sound escaped Sakura. She really missed talking to Kakashi. She never realized it before, but she liked hearing the sound of his voice. While he'd been gone for trips and she'd been fine, it was an entirely different matter to have someone in front of you and feel like they weren't there at all. Sometimes, she wondered if he was just ignoring her, or if he actually saw her at all anymore.

The sound of sand crunching made her look up and she watched as Kakashi slowly made his way over to her with his net and pole. Swimming around the tide pool, she waited for him to cast his net and pole before clambering onto the rocks to sit beside him. Staring up at him, she decided that today was going to be the day she would apologize. No ifs, ands, or buts.

Waiting until he turned his head to look at her, she played with her flippers a little before feeling herself ready to speak. Taking in a deep breath, she began. "Kakashi," she said feeling his eyes on her face, "about that night on the Harvest Moon…I was out of line. I shouldn't have asked about your eye because you obviously didn't want anyone to know, and I should've realized that you didn't want to talk about it, and I hurt you and well…what I wanted to say was…well…I'm…I'm…I'm sorry, Kakashi. I really am sorry."

Her head was bowed, eyes shut as she awaited whatever judgment Kakashi decided to give her. And though she hoped he forgave her, if he didn't—if he didn't want to talk to her anymore, wanted nothing to do with her anymore, then she would understand. Even if she didn't want to be apart from him, she would do her best to comply because well…she owed him that much, right?

The different permutations of reply spun in her head—that he would laugh at her; that he would become even angrier; that he wouldn't talk to her. She'd been so sure that he would react negatively…so imagine her response when Kakashi sighed and raked a hand through his hair in agitation.

"No, I'm sorry. This would've never happened if I had been more honest with you about my past," Kakashi told her softly. "I should've never protected you from it," he said with an affectionate rub on her head. Sakura merely smiled and leaned into the embrace, all too happy that he was talking to her again. She'd missed this.

"I missed you too," Kakashi said with a fond smile, making Sakura wonder if she'd said that out loud as her cheeks colored prettily under her fur. Kakashi, on the other hand, moved his hand lower to stroke the curve of her neck. "I'm sorry for being angry with you. I just…didn't know what to say."

"It's alright," Sakura said with a small flush on her face. In the back of her mind, she wondered how visible blushing was under fur.

"No, it isn't," said Kakashi. "I was being childish and you didn't deserve that from me. Just like how you deserved me being honest with you. You've told me everything about yourself and I haven't told you a thing. And if you don't mind, I'd like to change that."

And with that, Kakashi began to tell her of his parents, the sound of the waves mixing into his story.

* * *

><p>Sakura smiled to herself as she relaxed in the waves, letting the current carry her gently in the water as she hummed a happy forest song Kakashi had taught her last month. Though it had been almost a year since Kakashi told her the story of his past, the novelty had not worn off and Sakura was still overjoyed that Kakashi had shared his past with her. The fact that she was one of the few people who knew made her feel even more special.<p>

In the back of her mind, she recounted the details of the story for the nth time. Since they made up last year, Kakashi had been talking to her just as easily as before and they continued to talk endlessly about everything, though Sakura usually steered the conversation back to his past to learn more about the people who shaped him to be who he was today. Having few memories of his real parents, he would talk about Minato and Obito instead. She noticed that Rin was seldom brought up in their conversations—instead, Kakashi would redirect the conversation to another memory of Minato—but figured it was due to a lack of interesting things to say about the girl. Even so, she was content to listen to Kakashi talk about his old friends who he obviously loved dearly.

'_I'm happy,'_ she thought to herself with a fond smile. That Kakashi trusted her to that extent made her heart sing, and briefly, she wondered if that made her special in his eyes.

Just then, she saw two women on the shore and curious, she decided to investigate—women rarely came onto the beach at this time of day—only to find them sunning their laundry on the rocks on the beach. Bored, she began to head back to deeper water when she heard one woman ask, "So Kakashi will be coming home later tonight?"

Suddenly, Sakura's interest was piqued again. These women seemed to know of Kakashi's trip to the capital also, and they seemed to know the time of day that he was due to return (something Sakura never knew about). In the back of her mind, she realized she was eavesdropping on gossip and decided that despite Kakashi's distaste towards the subject, if it helped Sakura, gossip could not be all bad.

"Yes, the vendor who sells glass bottles saw him on his way to the village and Kakashi mentioned he'd return later tonight," replied the second woman.

"Seems like he's taking longer than usual. He's usually back by mid-afternoon."

"Well, apparently he's waiting until later to return because of the heat. He's buying flowers and he doesn't want them to wilt."

"Flowers? What kind of flowers?" the first woman asked, curious. Sakura felt the same way.

"Well, we have cypress trees, laurestine, heliotropes, and rosemary already, so he's going into town for snow drops and globe amaranths," the second woman replied.

The first woman gasped. "Aren't those flowers usually for mourning the death of a lover?"

"Yes, but he needed to replace the flowers at the altar for his dead wife and child."

The topic soon turned to how the second woman's sister lived in the area Kakashi had come from and that's how she knew, but Sakura couldn't pay attention to that as five words continued to ring in her ear. His dead wife and child. _His dead wife and child._ He'd never mentioned that before, never mentioned to her that he once had a wife and family. Why hadn't he said anything to her?

Unbidden, her mind traced the roots of his story, searching for a clue. She followed every route she could find, only to find dead ends. Minato died too early to have a child of his own; his own parents were only children; and Obito's clan was left with only males by the time that they departed, leaving Sakura with Rin. But that didn't make sense either because the image in her mind of the woman was vague—had always been vague because Kakashi never seemed to want to talk about her. It couldn't possibly be Rin that had been his wife.

But by the time the denial had crossed her mind, she already knew. She knew that it was true; that Rin had been his wife and that they had been in love and that they had a child and that was why Kakashi never spoke about her. That was why he always hesitated when he talked about the cottage fire; why there was always that brief pause when he talked about meeting his two saviors in the forest; why there was a fond look in his eye when he talked about the chores in the cottage. It was Rin, she knew deep inside herself. Kakashi had been in love with Rin.

Wind began to howl fiercely in Sakura's ears. She was venturing further out of the cove—a suicidal move as the curse began to activate and a storm started to churn the water around her—but her grief was too painful to make her care anything towards her personal safety. The pain in her chest was unbearable. She felt betrayed, hurt, deceived—but at what? She had no right to be angry. Kakashi wasn't hers to begin with after all—never had been even if he had spent almost every day with her for the past six years and let her into his home and his past. Had it been wrong of her to believe she was special to him, she wondered. Had she ever been special, she asked herself, and if not, had she just imagined everything then? Had she spent this entire time dreaming up a relationship that simply wasn't there?

Unbidden, an image of Kakashi and Rin happily sharing a kiss crossed her mind; her pained bark echoed through the cove. It hurt. It hurt. It hurt so much. It hurt to swim, it hurt to breathe. She wanted nothing more than to go disappear—to just go away where she'd never have to see or hear of Kakashi again. She wanted to go home.

Suddenly, her wandering had a purpose and she began to swim north towards the shore. Pulling her head up from the water, she shouted. "Anko! Anko!"

In a wisp of black smoke, the sea witch appeared, reclining comfortably on a rock as if there wasn't a large storm whipping the forest around her. "You rang, my dear?"

At the woman's cool tone, Sakura gnashed her teeth. "Change me back. You put this curse on me, you can take it off. I'll do anything. Just change me back. _I want to go home!_" she sobbed into the churning sea.

Anko, perched neatly atop her rock, merely stared down like a cat that suddenly had a very interesting toy to play with. Sakura was miserable. Anko didn't know how it happened or what caused it, but she wasn't the type to look a gift horse in the mouth. This was a good opportunity for revenge, and she wasn't just about to let it pass. Putting her best mothering face, she looked down at the girl sadly and cooed.

"My poor dear, of course!" she said as cupping Sakura's face in her hand, lowered by a wave that hovered just over the seal-girl. "But let's not talk out here. There's a storm brewing on the horizon. Let's go talk in my cabin where it's more comfortable."

Before Sakura even knew what had happened, she suddenly found herself on a wooden floor in a darkly-lit room as Anko looked out the window and clucked her tongue distastefully at the weather outside her window. "Would you like something to drink?" she asked. Sakura merely blinked and wondered if this was the same woman who had cursed her all those years ago.

"Umm…no thank you," Sakura answered quietly. Anko merely shrugged her shoulders as if pitying the girl for her decision before whipping up a cup of tea and sitting down at her main table. Stirring her spoon and sitting above her with such a superior air, Sakura suddenly wished she had accepted the tea if only to busy her hands—flippers—and feel less like a child.

Taking a brief sip, Anko wrinkled her nose in distaste before sprinkling something into her cup. Too dark. "Sakura, I will do all in my power to help you—I believe I have punished you enough, and after being in my relative care for six years, you're like a daughter to me now—but I'm a busy sea witch, after all, and I don't like to use magic when I have no reason to, so if you wouldn't mind…why the sudden change of heart? Why are you only invoking my name to change you back now?"

At the question, Sakura shrank into herself and tried not to let her gaze stray beyond the dark-haired woman in front of her as she lied. "I just wanted to go home. I haven't seen my parents in so long and I miss my friends and family," she said with a small shrug of her shoulders. Anko frowned imperceptibly and merely stirred her tea again, taking a sip.

"While it seems like a trivial reason to me—I've been alone all my life and you don't see me complaining—I will do my best to help you. However, you must understand that undoing a curse requires strong magic. I will be hard at work trying to prepare the necessary potions, but I need to be sure that you want to change back into a mermaid. Do you want your old form back?"

"Yes!" Sakura shouted desperately, the most emotion she'd shown to Anko all afternoon.

"Do you want to leave this cove?"

"Yes!"

"And will you do anything to turn back?"

"Yes!"

"Do you swear on the moon? The stars? Neptune and the seven seas?"

"Yes. Yes! I swear by all those things. I'll do anything! Anything! Just turn me back, _please,_" Sakura pleaded. At her answer, Anko smiled and smoothly left her chair to be eye-level with Sakura, patting her head.

"Alright then," said Anko with a smooth, satin voice before standing up, her cloak whirling behind her. "I'll begin work on the necessary potions, but this spell requires something from you too. Rather, you need to do something to make the spell permanent," she said as she began to pour powders and roots into a mortar.

"What…kind of thing?" Sakura asked warily.

Anko let out a sharp, barking laugh. "I'm glad you asked," she said with a devious turn of the head that made Sakura shudder. "It's nothing much. I simply need you to eat the liver of the man you love."

"T-the man I love?" Sakura asked. Immediately, an image of Kakashi flashed before her eyes.

"Yes. That shouldn't too hard, right? You're always hanging out with that fisherman on the beach, after all. And before you say otherwise, it _must_ be the man you love, or else the spell won't work and you'll be stuck a seal forever. And don't try and deny your feelings for him. I see everything, Sakura. I know you like him," she said with a dark, teasing smile as she mixed a bright-colored liquid with the powder.

Suddenly, Sakura was having doubts. "I don't…I don't know. I don't feel comfortable with this…"

Almost as quickly as she said it, Sakura began to regret the words that had escaped from her mouth as the glass vials in Anko's hands shattered with a sharp, piercing "crack," blood dripping down the palms of her hands to stain the wooden desk by the window.

"_What?"_ she growled with a turn of her head and savage gnashing on her teeth.

"I just don't think—"

"You just don't think 'what?'" Anko began to step towards her. A piece of glass in her hand fell out, landing in a droplet of blood on the floor. "You don't think my time is worth anything? Even when I have taken time out of my busy schedule—for you. _For you!_—to help you in your hour of need?"

Sakura's eyes widened. "It's not that. I just—"

Another step. "You what? Didn't you say you wanted to be a mermaid? Didn't you swear that you did?"

"I did, but-!"

Another step. "And didn't you say that you'd do anything to become a mermaid again? Didn't you swear that you would?"

"But—!"

"'But' what?" she hissed. "I am giving you your old life back. I didn't have to listen to your pleading—I could've just left you out in that water to drown in your miserable, pitiful sorrows—but I did. I am offering to help you—you, the offspring of the man who killed my master—and you dare back out on me now?"

Sakura shook her head. "It's not that. I just—"

"You just what? You don't care about being a mermaid anymore?" Anko asked with disgust.

"No."

"You don't want to go back to the ocean anymore—?"

"No!"

"That you love a pathetic human more than your family enough to sacrifice this chance—?"

"_No!"_

Anko cackled. "Then what are you waiting for? Go out and kill him. Eat his liver and you'll be a mermaid forever again!"

"Fine!" Sakura shouted as Anko began to work at her desk with a new fervor. Liquids and powders, dried lizards and snake heads all began to go into one vial. Shaking it up, Anko poured the bright blue liquid into a cup and passed it to the girl.

"Drink this," she told the girl. "In addition to your normal transformation during the Harvest Moon, for exactly one week, it'll allow you to walk on land and live as a human to complete your mission. Fail however…"

An ornate dagger was suddenly plunged into the table, its hilt jutting from the wooden surface as Anko smiled behind it. "If you can't seduce the fisherman and eat his liver in the allotted time, I kill you with this knife. You forfeit your life to me, and your soul is mine. You have eight days," explained the sea witch, a predatory grin on her lips. "Do we have a deal?"

Sakura bit her lip in hesitation as she stared between the knife on the table and the vial in her flippers. Even as Anko told her to think of the dagger as added motivation for getting the job done, this felt wrong. She just wanted to leave this cove. She didn't want to hurt anyone. Helpless, she turned to Anko who merely shrugged.

"You swore to the sea. It's either you or him now," she answered calmly with a sinuous shrug of her shoulders.

It was true. She'd invoked the stars, the moon, and the sea. She had to go through with it or risk death the next time she entered the water. By now, the pain of Kakashi's betrayal had settled, twisting and turning itself into a malicious lump of jealousy and resentment in her chest as her mind begged to know why…why he never told her the truth. Did he think she was too young? That she wouldn't understand? Or was it merely because he didn't think she warranted an explanation, as a woman or a friend. To that kind of treatment on land, the ocean seemed like a salve for her wounds. Home was beckoning to her, a place far away from this accursed fishing village on the European coast. Though her heart hurt now, she could learn to forget about the man she loved. She'd move on. Sakura would make sure of that. However…

"How am I to be sure that you'll keep your word? You cursed me once. What's to stop you from just turning on your promises and killing me?" Sakura asked, eyeing the sea witch suspiciously.

Anko raised her brows slightly as a contemptuous smirk graced her lips. The girl was smarter than she gave her credit for. "Fine. I swear that I, Anko, will keep my word to the mermaid princess, Sakura."

"Swear on the ocean?" Sakura asked.

Anko smiled and placed one hand over her heart, raising the other one with a slight flourish. "Swear by the very ocean that grants me my powers," she replied, calling upon the highest oath of their kind—not that it really mattered much. The foolish seal-girl was as good as hers.

Unaware of Anko's treacherous thoughts however, Sakura lessened the intensity of her critical eye—she'd sworn on the ocean, the source of her power. To defy that was assured-death—and turned to the bright-blue liquid calling to her. Regret and doubt began to prick at her mind—did she really want to do this?—but the urge to flee was greater than anything else she felt, and with a flick of her wrists, Sakura poured the liquid down her throat. A white light exploded before eyes, enveloping her as intense heat seared her bones. In the back of her mind, she recalled a similar sensation from when she was first cursed before she felt the bloody wet sensation of her tail cleaving into two legs and her core explode into a fit of pain.

* * *

><p>Kakashi braced his hat against the gusting wind. It was late. The stars—what few he could see—were now high in the sky, signaling night had fallen for the day. He was three hours past when he had been due to arrive, slowed down by the sudden storm. In the back of his mind, he wondered if the cove's luck had finally run out for perfect weather conditions.<p>

The trees began to thin the closer he got to the village. Dropping off his things at home, he went to the stables to return the horse he'd rented. He'd barely transferred the reins to the stable hand when he ran into Genma.

"Mayor's put the village on storm alert. Batten down anything you don't want to fly away," Genma said passing on the information.

Kakashi nodded. "Thanks for the warning," he replied, already making a checklist of what he'd need to tie down in his backyard. Genma nodded in acknowledgment, the same look of concentration on his face as he seemed to do the same in his mind.

"I just hope the seal is okay."

"Sakura will be just fine," Kakashi reassured. Genma, hearing this from the seal's confidante, seemed to relax a little.

"I guess. She does live in the water all the time. Maybe she swam away after she sensed the storm," Genma wondered.

"What do you mean?" Kakashi asked, his brows knit in confusion.

"No one's seen the seal all afternoon. The last time anyone saw it, it was swimming towards the mouth of the cove."

And that was the last thing Kakashi heard before he bolted into the storm towards the beach.

* * *

><p>The first thing Sakura realized when she opened her eyes, was that it was cold. Night had fallen; she could tell by the color of the water around her, a dark purple-blue the color of blueberry skins and crushed violets. The final ebbs of pain were going away and gingerly, she picked herself out of the shallow she seemed to have landed in. At last memory, she was in Anko's cottage. Now, it seemed that she had appeared on the beach of the cove. Glancing up, she could see the stars peeking through the fading, wispy streaks of storm clouds disappearing slowly in the sky. They were lovely.<p>

A breeze blew over her, sending shivers over her skin and her pink hair into her field of vision. Looking down, she found she had legs again and wiggled her toes experimentally in the sand, nostalgia washing over her as she did so. How long had it been since she had legs?

She looked over the rest of her body, her skin stark white in the moonlight as her green eyes traced over her long legs, the darker-pink hair at the apex of her thighs, the flat of her stomach. Another breeze blew and she rubbed warmth back into her arms with her small hands, the nails on her long, tapered fingers glowing slightly in the moonlight as water dripped down the small of her back from her wet hair. In the back of her mind, she made a note to cut it again.

Her limbs and appendages working, Sakura peered into the water to stare at her figure. It was so strange staring at her new form. Though she knew this was her new body—that this form was to be the new Sakura, it felt so surreal after so many years as a seal. Even as a mermaid, with her top half human, it was a strange sight to see because it had been so long since she'd seen it without the transformative powers of the Harvest Moon.

Raising a hand, she gently touched her cheek, watching as bright beryl-green eyes stared back at her. Her skin still felt cold from the water, her hair creating a slight echoing effect as drops of water fell back into the ocean beneath her. Despite her disbelief, it was true. Anko's magic had worked. She was a human now.

The sound of rustling leaves and snapping branches alerted her to the sound of an intruder. They were breathing heavily—they must have run from somewhere far because she could hear their heartbeat clearly—and she wondered who the person was; if they were friend or foe.

"Sakura…?" the voice asked and at the familiar voice, she gracefully stood up on her two new legs, turning her head towards the beach, the water still glistening on her hair and skin as their eyes met.

For there, standing breathlessly with his chest heaving on the beach, was Kakashi.


	4. Act III Finale

Last chapter! I feel like crying because I have never been so stressed against a deadline before. Also, there's a lemon this chapter (that M wasn't just for gore, you know). And for anyone insulted by Ebisu's representation of Christianity, keep in mind that this story is set during the late Middle-Ages to before the age of Enlightenment and they put God-fearing to an extreme back then (note Spanish Inquisition, witches burning at the stake, and the various art from the Middle Ages about hell/burning in hell/demons/sinners in hell), as well as the rampant corruption in the church system that lead to Protestantism and Martin Luther's list of reformations for the church. Enjoy!

***Edit: removed the lemon because the site is cracking down. Honestly, a week after I originally posted the story, I realized the lemon wasn't really needed and felt a bit remiss that I had left it in there just to validate the M-warning. However, I will be posting the original version with lemon on my livejournal in a week if you guys _really_ want the smut.***

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><p>The first thing that Kakashi felt when he saw a pink-haired girl on the beach was relief. He didn't know why; he had no proof that Sakura hadn't perished or had been washed out to sea by the storm—had no proof that this girl was Sakura, but it had to be, right? How many girls would be on the beach at this hour? How many girls had long pink hair and green eyes? She'd even responded to Sakura's name, but even before all that, he knew it was her. He knew because he'd held that pink hair before—combed and trimmed it and gently chided her for fussing over a small hair cut—and stared into those eyes, green as precious stones and glowed hauntingly in the moonlight just as they did now. She had Sakura's face; the gentle curve of her cheek, her small full mouth, her small pointed chin. She even had Sakura's way of carrying herself, a subtle grace and confidence that showed in the way she stood with her back straight, her head held high. It had to be her, Kakashi told himself. But even then, he was hesitant in calling her name because it was too good to be true—that Sakura was a human now; that all his dreams of a life with her were coming to fruition. It was too good to be true.<p>

Sakura merely stared at him silently as water dripped down her skin and her nude form basked in moonlight. She looked beautiful, like a water nymph caught in the middle of bathing, entrancing and tempting. Unbidden, snippets of old fantasies flickered in his mind's eye—products of lonely nights and crushing, unattainable love—before he shook them aside. Now wasn't the time for this. Sakura, still in the water, continued to stare up at him with doleful eyes.

Slowly, Kakashi made his way down the beach. He gave Sakura plenty of time to run, to hide, to get away from him if she didn't want him to touch her, but she didn't move. Stripping off his coat, he wrapped her in it. It wasn't much, but it'd be enough to keep her warm in this autumn air until he found some real clothes for her to wear.

"Can you walk?" he asked quietly as he draped the heavy article around her. Sakura, pulling the coat around her small frame even more, blinked up at him and let out a small "I think so."

Kakashi nodded in acknowledgement and began to walk out of the shallow tidal water, making sure to keep his pace slow and even, but one look behind him let him know Sakura was struggling. In the five steps he'd taken, she'd only made two and he watched as her legs wobbled unsteadily before she pitched over to the side, falling into the sand. Instantly he was at her side, checking her for injuries. When he was satisfied that she was fine, he dusted her legs off before wordlessly picking her up—even if she looked fine, she obviously was in no condition to walk—shifting her weight in his arms until her back was against his right arm and her knees were hooked comfortably in his left. As he did so, a traitorous part of his mind compared it to the night last year when he brought her home when he quickly hushed it and headed back to his cabin.

He left Sakura in his living room near the fireplace. She was supposed to warm up here while he found clothes for her somewhere—she didn't know how. When he brought her into the village, all the house lights were out for the night—and so she waited, warming up her toes by the fire and wriggling them experimentally as Kakashi continued to rummage in the room next door. Idly, she looked around the room she'd been in before and pulled the collar tighter around her, drinking in Kakashi's lingering body heat as the scent of sea salt and sandalwood pricked her nose. It still smelled like him.

More stumbling noises. The sound of boxes tumbling over him with a muttered curse that she'd never heard him say, but heard all the other fishermen use commonly flitted through the open door before Kakashi appeared, a dark pink garment in his hand.

"Are you feeling any better?" he asked. Sakura nodded her head shyly.

"A little," she replied as she flexed her foot experimentally, noticing that the movement was much smoother than before. Perhaps what she felt before had merely been a result of the cold that had seeped into her skin.

Kakashi nodded, satisfied with her answer before holding the garment up for her to see better. "It isn't much, but it was the only thing I could find on short notice. I thought about using my clothes, but this will work better as a disguise until we figure out what to do from here," he explained, handing her the piece of clothing to change in. Holding it out before her, Sakura realized it was a dress and she rubbed her thumb over the obviously worn places where patches had been sewn into the fabric.

"I thought you lost everything in the fire," Sakura commented. Kakashi, sensing the unspoken question, rubbed his neck and laughed.

"I did, but I was repairing this dress for Rin in the hunting cabin. You wouldn't know it, but Rin's sewing skills are abysmal. In fact, it was Obito who had all the sewing talent between the two of them. When they first treated my injuries, it was Obito who stitched my wounds back together."

Sakura looked up from the dress to look at him, unaware that the collar of the coat had fallen open, revealing the valley of her breasts. Kakashi, however, did notice and quickly tried to find something of interest in the roaring fire. "You know how to sew? Isn't that usually considered women's work in your world?" she asked, citing the many times that Genma complained of not having a wife and having to send all his socks to a neighbor to be mended.

"Generally," Kakashi assented. "But you forget that I grew up an orphan and a bachelor. I never had the luxury of someone fixing my clothes for me. I had to do it myself," he laughed. In the back of her mind, she tried picturing Kakashi as he mended the dress she held in her hand. He probably did it after the sky had become too dark to hunt, pushing and pulling the needle by a fire as he waited for his traps to trip. Suddenly, Sakura felt a familiar sting of envy in her throat, but forced it down so she could change into the garment. If she wanted to complete her mission and be rid of Kakashi once and for all, she'd have to swallow everything, including any anger or resentment she felt for the dead woman whose dress Kakashi had lovingly fixed.

Kakashi, noticing her intentions, turned away from the reading chair she sat in to stare out the window. Even as he tried to focus his mind on other things—like why Sakura ventured out into open water when she knew what the curse entailed, how she turned into a human, or what lie he would feed to the villagers to explain her appearance here—he still heard everything. He heard the drop of his coat hitting the ground, the slight flapping of cloth as she shook out the dress to step into it, the faint pitter-patter of her feet as she moved this way and that. He tried to keep his mind on other things, but it was impossible when he knew she was right there behind him, naked, beautiful, and defenseless. Even on opposite sides of the fireplace, he could sense her presence, smell the fragrant perfume of sea salt and crushed flowers that wreathed his senses and left him aching at night. His fingers itched to touch her, burned to hold her against him and caress that form that he had seen frozen in the moonlight and continued to haunt him now behind the safety of closed doors in the sanctity of his home. It was torture to stay here, but he had to stay in case she needed help—the times he'd let her try his shirt on, biting the inside of his cheek hard enough to draw blood because she had looked absolutely, deliciously divine in his clothing, she could never button herself up. Her fingers just refused to work that way—but he knew that really, it was an excuse. That dress had nothing on it that would require him to stay while she changed. He just wanted to be near her and bask in her presence more, torn between delirious joy that she was here with him and crying at the aching need inside him.

On the other side of the room, however, Sakura was trying not to scream as she forced herself to stand upright. She tried focusing on the footstool on the floor, tried to trace the stitching with her eyes, tried to count the number of stones in the fireplace, but every attempt was in vain as shot after shot of pain raced up her spine from her feet. So she hadn't imagined it back at the beach after all. Her feet were in pain. In the water, it had been fine, but the cold seemed to have numbed her nerves and dulled the pain. Now warm, she felt like she was dying. To stand felt like her legs were being set on fire; to shift her weight to get into this dress felt like pins and needles; and to walk…Immediately, her memory raced to those two insignificant footprints in the sand and she felt her stomach leap into her throat. Placing a hand over her mouth, she tried not to gag and ruin the dress she had just managed to put on as she remembered what it felt like to walk, like walking on the reefs of the beach that left her hands and tail raw and bleeding, like walking with crushed glass in her shoes that ground further and further into her aching flesh with every step. Was it because of the spell, she wondered, or was it because she hadn't used her legs in so long? Was her body just not used to walking on land anymore? Were her nerves—so used to blubbery cushions and the smooth gliding of sand under her tail—being worn raw after being without use of bare flesh for so long?

Another shot of pain. It had hit so abruptly that she felt dizzy, her feet tottering to keep her steady and only adding to the dark cloud thundering behind her eyes and pounding at her temples. In the back of her mind, she wondered what was the point of asking why her feet hurt. The fact was that it did, and if she wanted to get off her feet and turn back into a mermaid, she'd have to suck it up and walk. Even if it felt like fire, like pins and needles, like crushed glass being ground into every pore of her body, it was only eight days. Eight days of pain and agony for a lifetime of sweet freedom away from this wretched place. For that, she could endure the pain. She would endure it, and taking a few steadying breaths, Sakura willed the pain back. Steeling her voice and pasting on her best neutral face to hide the shaking in her ankles, she called out to him.

"I'm ready," she said.

Taking that as his cue, Kakashi turned around. Though his breath hadn't been stolen away, he would admit to a slight hitch in his breathing as he looked at Sakura. Her pink hair, long and slightly wavy from the sea water and a lack of combing, framed her face to fall down her elbows to the small of her back. Her green eyes, large and shining like the stars, stared back at his with demure confidence as her lower lip gleamed prettily in the firelight. If he hadn't known any better, he would've assumed she was just one of the pretty girls in the village.

"The dress is a bit…large on me," she said as she pulled limply at the baggy extra fabric that seemed to hang off her small frame everywhere.

"I'm not surprised. Rin was a bit older and taller than you when I had been fixing this dress. Here, I'll fix it," he said crossing to her side. Scooting the armchair back, he stood behind her, grabbing a pair of dangling laces that hung loosely from the darker midsection of the dress.

"Bear with me, Sakura," he warned. Sakura nodded, not sure what was going on while Kakashi was quite aware of what was going on. Stepping closer, he was only inches away from Sakura as he began to deftly weave the laces of her bodice, drawing the fabric around her waist tighter. At this distance, her perfume was even stronger and unconsciously, he gripped her laces tighter than necessary as he struggled against himself. She was close, so painfully close, a traitorous voice in his head whispered, made even worse when he brushed aside her hair to see the lace holes better. As the delicate strands passed through his hands, a shudder danced along his skin and he bit the inside of his lip to stop himself as he deftly tied the knot at the bottom hem of the bodice, his hands lingering over the bow longer than necessary before he pulled away.

"That should help. We'll try and find you better clothes in the morning, but for now this will have to do. The bow is at the bottom; just pull on it and you'll be able to take it off," he told her, watching as she let her hair fall back behind her shoulders, nodding to show him she'd heard before unexpectedly turning to face him, her large eyes staring up at him silently. Instantly, he knew what that look meant—knew it because it was the one she always had when he was teaching her something new. She was waiting for further instruction from him, and immediately his mind sank into the darker territories of what he could teach her.

"I'll—I'll show you to your room. You must be tired," he said before gently taking her hand and steering her to the back of the house.

The back of his home was, in contrast to his front room, much more sparsely decorated. Another bookshelf, tall and thin, stood in the lower left hand corner facing towards them. Next to them, a small writing desk stood with a small stack of blank paper as two books weighed it down from the wind, a solitary ink pot and pen standing guard. A small faded woven rug sat in the middle of the room in front of a fireplace smaller than the one she'd seen before next to a wooden chair. Behind the chair, Sakura could see a dresser and chest laying open in a state of repair—that must have been where he'd been looking for the dress—before finally dragged her eyes to a single bed pushed against the wall under a square window, the only one in the room.

Leading Sakura to the bed, she gratefully took a seat as Kakashi threw another log into the fireplace, sweeping some fallen shirts away from the blaze with his foot.

"We'll figure out what to do in the morning," he said as he began throwing the mess back into the dresser drawers, telling her not to pick it up because he'd deal with sorting them in the morning, "Until we figure out some kind of permanent arrangement or if you'll stay human forever, you can take the bed."

Sakura blinked. "Where will you sleep then?"

"Mmm? Oh, I'll just sleep outside on the reading chair," he said noncommittally as he put back a thick book on the dresser top. There, that kind of looked better.

"Oh, I see," Sakura said, Kakashi missing the note of disappointment in her voice as he stoked the fire. Turning, he told her that the fire should keep her warm until morning, but left her another blanket, regardless. Taking another one out of the bottom of the chest, he asked if she needed anything before he left. She shook her head; she didn't need anything, and with a brief "Goodnight Sakura," Kakashi slipped into the front room and closed the door behind him, leaving Sakura alone in the room.

"Goodnight Kakashi…" she said at last to no one in particular as the message bounced off the closed door, reminding her that she was, for all intensive purposes, alone. Sighing, she quietly slipped under the covers and wondered how long it had been since she'd slept in a bed. Idly, she thought of the giant clamshell she had slept in as a child and wondered if someone made her bed everyday even if no one had slept in it for years.

Turning onto her back, Sakura stared up at the ceiling, suddenly feeling the weight of all that had happened today. She picked through all her thoughts, careful to steer away from those involving Rin—a Pandora's Box that she would never open again if she could help it—as she tried to think up a plan. She had eight days to kill Kakashi and eat his liver to return to life as a mermaid—a life without him where she never had to think about him again. And while it had seemed so simple when she had agreed, it wasn't anymore. Not when he'd carried from the beach like he had one year ago, or when he had been so unexpectedly caring towards her. It was hard to believe how loved she had felt and she could feel the first shiver of hope blooming in her heart before she stomped it firmly back from the hole it came from. She was letting her emotions get the best of her again; she was getting her hopes again when she had already learned earlier this afternoon that there was no such thing as a future with Hatake Kakashi. It was a lesson she would do best to remember.

And so, she would go ahead with her plans. She would walk as if she weren't stepping on glass and every act on her feet felt she was being skinned alive; she would walk and talk and smile like all the other humans, using what Kakashi had taught her over the past six years; she would laugh and smile at him like any other woman would; and then she would kill him and return home to forget that any of this had ever happened. She was never cursed. She never lived in a cove housing a small fishing village on the European shore. She never fell in love with a human named Kakashi, and she never had her heart broken. At the end of these eight days, when she had her tail back for more than twenty-four hours without the help of the moon, she would write this off as nothing more than a bad dream and swim home back to her family. No more, no less.

And with that, Sakura steeled her resolve and ducked her head under the covers in an attempt to sleep as she tried not to cry in the bed that smelled of him and carried his lingering warmth.

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><p>By the time Sakura woke up that morning, the sun was already high in the sky. In the quiet of the room, she could hear the chickens Kakashi kept behind his house clucking happily under the window, crowing only once or twice in distress as he changed the straw in their coop while in the distance, Sakura could hear the hustle and bustle of village life. Though the sounds were different from the sounds she was used to hearing in the morning—and really, they were quite interesting to listen to—Sakura couldn't help straining her hearing in the morning to catch a snippet of a crashing wave, even when she knew she was too far to hear anything. Just then, a knock came at the door.<p>

"Come in," said Sakura, watching as the door opened to reveal Kakashi as bits of straw fell from his pant legs. At the lone chicken feather clinging to his messy mop of silver hair, Sakura hid her mouth with her hand and giggled at the picture.

"I got the eggs. Breakfast will be ready soon, so come out once you're changed," he told her, wondering what she was laughing at before she silently motioned at his hair. Reaching up, he watched as a feather drifted gently into the basket of eggs he was carrying before muttering a quick thanks as he left her to change.

Once gone, Sakura sat in the bed a minute more, trying to summon the energy to get out of bed. Though Kakashi knew she was a hard person to wake up when she had been a seal napping on the beach, being human seemed to have magnified the problem. She just didn't understand the idea of schedules and early morning routines. Though she had had one when she was a seal (mostly consisting of cleaning her fur and taking a quick morning swim to help wake herself up), human morning routines were different. To her, the idea of waking up at the crack of dawn to fetch water and chop firewood was a meaningless, infuriating set of tasks that could simply be done at a later time rather than right at the rise of the sun, and it was a miracle to her that Kakashi seemed to be able to do it. However, he was understanding of her inability to wake up in the morning—it was merely a difference in culture—and allowed her to sleep in a few hours later before waking her up for breakfast.

Crossing the room, Sakura changed into a simple brown skirt and white shirt received from a neighbor before attaching a black bodice (also from a neighbor) to herself, tying the laces to give the outfit form before running a hand tiredly through her hair. Though she usually slept late, she'd never slept this late into the day before, but chalked it up to greeting all the neighbors and their children yesterday.

Soon after she awoke yesterday, Kakashi had gone next door to ask if he could have any old dresses his neighbor had that would fit a slight 18-yr-old girl. The excuse he had given was that his old neighbor's daughter had come to pay him a visit, but her luggage was blown away by the storm, forcing her to arrive with only the clothes on her back. His neighbor, a mother of two young boys and a girl, immediately felt her maternal heartstrings pulled and threw not only three old outfits that she no longer fit into after marrying, but a pie and a jar of jam at him with a hasty demand to meet the young lady as he left her yard. Of course, by the time Sakura changed and the two ate breakfast, the news had spread over the entire village and people were touting gifts and falling over themselves to see the girl who had shared a part of Kakashi's mysterious history.

Keeping to her assigned role, Sakura pretended to be the shy girl from the forest she imagined this neighbor's daughter should be, despite knowing almost everyone in town after seeing them one time or another at the beach. At such a chaste and modest girl, the village soon was in uproar over the fact she was staying with Kakashi alone in his house for fear of her reputation, especially since she was at marriageable age. Unfortunately, it was soon apparent that no one else had room for her to stay. Genma's offer was obviously ignored; the mayor's guest room was currently occupied by his bratty teenage daughter while his niece and nephew stayed in town; and the inn simply had no more rooms available—something to do with an upcoming festival or other—and so the decision was made that she would continue to stay at Kakashi's house, because really, he was the only friendly face she knew in town. Once that matter was settled, however, Sakura soon found herself bombarded with questions of Kakashi's old life and she was grateful when Kakashi excused her from their questioning to run inside and recover from the hectic pace of human life. Finally understanding his disdain for meeting his new neighbors early in their relationship, she collapsed against a chair and waited for Kakashi to return, only to be attacked by the village children. By now, however, the pain of being her feet all morning was beginning to weigh heavily and noticing the sudden pallor in her skin, he told the visitors that Sakura had a weak body and needed to rest because she was still tired from the journey here. By the time Kakashi convinced everyone to go home, Sakura had received a mountain of gifts and enough clothing to fill a chest and they spent the rest of the night putting everything away.

That had been yesterday. Today, Kakashi assured her that it would be a quiet day at home since he'd now convinced the village that Sakura had a weak constitution and needed rest often, and while she frowned at the idea that she would now be treated as an invalid in the village, she supposed it would help keep the interactions short and her off her feet.

However, she would need her feet for the next part as she walked into the front room, taking the closest seat that she could find. Though she found her endurance had risen slightly since the first time she tried to use her legs, she could only stand being on her feet for fifteen minutes before her vision began to blur. Walking was even shorter; only lasting ten minutes if it was a fast-paced walk where she could keep contact with the ground light and brief and only five minutes if the pace was slow. Luckily, Kakashi hadn't expected her to do anything that left her on her feet for long, and he didn't seem to have any knowledge of her pain. In the back of her mind, she prayed that he would never find out, but before she could pursue the thought any further, a plate was placed in front of her, distracting her with its delicious scent.

"Eat up," he told her as he sat across the table from her, gauging her reaction to her breakfast for future reference. After making her breakfast yesterday morning, he realized that Sakura was actually a picky-eater. Though she could eat any type of fish and could still stomach apples, he realized that he hadn't exposed her to a lot of human food, proven when she stared warily at the plate of fried eggs and poked them in confusion with her fork when he had set them in front of her the day before. Since then, he'd kept tracks on what she would and wouldn't touch from the gifts given yesterday. From the looks of it, Sakura still had no qualms of eating fish or apples, but also enjoyed poultry, cherries, wild berries, and jams—which he was secretly thankful for. Sweets had never been something Kakashi could stomach for long periods of time, and he'd received enough jam to last him eight months yesterday—while staying away from eggs and marmalade.

Wondering if scrambling the eggs would help her eat them (he had a feeling it was just a textural problem since she kept poking the whites yesterday), he also slipped in some rosemary for seasoning. It seemed to have worked because Sakura had eaten without complaint before asking what was in it that created such a different, wonderful taste.

"Oh, that's rosemary. It's an herb that grows near the stream that runs behind the house. I picked too much for the altar offering, so I thought I'd use some of the extra when I made breakfast. If you'd like, I can use it more often when I cook," Kakashi said as he picked up the bundle of rosemary on the table. Getting up to follow him—her curiosity was stronger than her fear of pain—the two stood before the wooden carving on next to the bedroom door and she watched as Kakashi placed the rosemary beside the other plants in the opening left by the hands, the extra sprigs held loosely in his grasp. Drawing on what Kakashi had taught her about botany, Sakura scanned the flora. Snow drops, a small twig from a cypress tree, laurenstine, globe amaranths, heliotropes, and rosemary; just like the women on the beach said and Sakura had to actively keep the venom from leaking into her voice as she spoke.

"Who's the offering for?" she asked, the 'why' not being necessary since they both knew the language of flowers after he taught it to her during their many botany lessons.

Kakashi knit his brows in concentration. After a pregnant pause, he finally answered, "It's for Rin and our baby."

Silence stretched between them as Sakura tried to make this fit into her world of reason because with little prodding, Kakashi had been honest about his past…hadn't he? Kakashi, unaware of Sakura's sudden confusion, continued to speak as his mind swam in the memories of his past. "A little while after Obito died, Rin and I fell in love with each other—maybe it was because of grief. Maybe it was because we actually did have those feelings all along—and after a few months, we wed and had a baby. We were so happy—I had a child, and Obito died too early in the relationship to have children with Rin," he explained, recalling the day he held his child in his arms. "It was a boy, and we named him after Obito. We wished he could've seen our son. He had his mother's hair and my eyes…It was terrible—it's funny now, but the first time I held him, he pulled my hair out," he said laughing with a fond smile as Sakura bit the inside of her cheek, watching as he relived that moment in time with his son and wishing she wasn't—hadn't seen him so at peace as jealousy stabbed knife after knife into her heart.

Suddenly, the fond smile became sadder, more wistful, and Sakura couldn't help but think that Kakashi seemed to wilt a little as he spoke. "He was only eight weeks old when he died," Kakashi murmured sadly. "I think if he hadn't been in the cabin—if he hadn't been born—Rin might still be alive today. That child was her life—she'd do anything for our son—and I think she just couldn't leave the child alone to die in that fire. She just couldn't do it."

As he spoke, his head was upturned to the wooden carving he'd made for Rin before she died, the images of their life together playing over the grains of wood. Idly, the sprigs of rosemary spun in his hand. "I lost everything in that fire," he whispered to no one in particular with his hand paused between the carving and his side as if he wanted to reach out to them, but wasn't sure. Sakura, standing on the side, lowered her gaze as she bit her lip, suddenly feeling ashamed of her jealousy. After all, what right did she have to curse his happiness, even when it wasn't with her?

And she had been so absolute in her hatred towards him. It was silly now in hindsight. It was 20/20, she knew, but she just wished she could take it all back somehow. Kakashi was obviously hurt by the loss of his family—was obviously still carrying the scars of that loss—and what did she do but selfishly malign and curse a grieving man? Her curses on Rin, on their child seemed so petty now, and she began to regret her actions, making a note to ask Neptune to guard the child's soul in the afterlife.

"…why didn't you ever tell me that you had a family?" Sakura asked quietly. The question carried none of the hate she viewed him with yesterday, none of the contempt. She was genuinely curious as to why because while she no longer resented his former family, she was still hurt that he hadn't shared this with her before. Was it because he thought she was too young to understand? Or was it because he simply didn't trust her as much as she had thought?

Kakashi rubbed his neck in agitation, crossing his left leg over his right and slackening his posture as he looked up at the sky. A sigh escaped his lips as he continued to rub his neck. Why indeed?

"I guess…I just never knew how to bring it up," he said simply because to be honest, that was the only real reason he never brought it up. He was so happy with Sakura now that he didn't want to risk it—didn't want to bring a shadow to their relationship by bringing up Rin because he didn't know what to tell her. After all, how was he supposed to tell the woman he loved that he had once loved another woman—loved her enough to commit to a marriage with her and have a child?

And so he buried it, locking it away with all the other relics of his past that he hoped he would never have to see again. But his secrets were out now; his past unearthed to the light. Maybe it was some higher power's will; maybe it was fate, but it seemed that something wanted Kakashi to deal with his past, and maybe he had been running away from it for too long. He almost lost Sakura trying to hide his secrets from her and he realized soon after that argument that it was perhaps time to face his fears. Maybe it was finally time to move on.

Glancing to the side, he saw Sakura crying and leaned down to wipe it away with his thumb. "It's okay, Sakura. I'm not upset about it anymore," Kakashi said, thinking that was the reason she was crying before amending himself, "Well, maybe I still am a little upset…but I've decided to put my past behind me. I can't change the fact they died, just like how I can't change who I am. And while I'm the only one who survived—whether there's a reason for it or not—I'm here and I need to live my life and make the most of it. I need to be happy with where I am, and I am in large part because of you, so…thank you, Sakura."

His hand was on her shoulder, eyes staring gratefully into hers and she prayed he couldn't stare beyond their surface to see her pain, her guilt. She had doubted him so much in the past few days when he'd just confessed that he held her in the highest esteem. His trust, his faith in her hurt. She felt dirty and low, lost and confused. Her world had been turned upside-down over and over again. Up and down, left and right, right and wrong were suddenly no longer where she last saw them. She was scared and alone, but hadn't it been her fault that she had been placed in this position? Wasn't she the one who jumped to conclusions? In the back of her mind, a timer rang out that she only had five days before the harvest moon and the poisonous dark feelings that had been living in her stomach suddenly began to gnaw away at her body, leaving a bitter taste on her tongue.

Desperate, she leapt into Kakashi, feeling his body give in surprise at the sudden contact. However, he didn't pull away, instead placing a reassuring hand on her head as she felt the other rest comfortingly warm on her back. He probably thought she was still upset over him losing his family and inwardly, she wanted to laugh in his face because his thoughts couldn't be further from the truth. In the back of her mind, she told herself she was only making things more difficult. This was the man she'd sworn to kill for her curse to be lifted; the last thing she should be doing was to become more attached to him, to let her heart grow soft with feelings of hope, affection and love, but she was so desperate for contact. His admission to his previous life with a family was doing strange things to her insides. It was complicating everything. She shouldn't have been so happy to hear memories of his past, so relieved that his seeming mistrust was merely his inability to bring it up at the right time, but she was, making her wonder where her plans for revenge lay. Her hate had evaporated with every kind word and caring action he gave her; her anger melted with every touch on her skin. There was nothing driving her murderous plan anymore because there was no more pain. He cared for her, he laughed with her, he trusted her. Everything was back to normal now and all that was left was her vow to the seven seas to kill him. It was a silly reason if she thought about it, but she had sworn to the powers that ruled her world. The deal with Anko had been done, and now…now it was merely a game of what she wanted. She was happy now; Kakashi was open with her once more but was she happy enough with that to want give up her life? And it was that idea that scared her because she didn't want to die. She had so much left that she wanted to do, but Kakashi probably did too, so did she love Kakashi enough to sacrifice herself?

That was the decision she now had to weigh inside her. She knew one person had to die, but would it be her or Kakashi? In the back of her mind, the timer echoed once more. Five days. Only five more days.

Sakura pushed the number away and buried herself further into Kakashi's warm embrace.

* * *

><p>Sakura and Kakashi walked leisurely through the village center as they made their way back to Kakashi's cottage. It had been six days since the night Kakashi found her on the beach as a human and today, they had stepped into town to run a few errands. Idly, Sakura fingered the ends of her freshly-cut hair, now no longer waist-long but instead falling a few inches past her shoulder. As she tried to adjust to the odd sensation she always got after receiving a haircut—her head always felt unbalanced after losing the weight of her hair to a haircut, something that Kakashi never seemed to be understanding of when he trimmed her pink locks—around them, boards being hammered together as beams were put into place and long spools of ribbon and streamers were unraveled across the sky. Suddenly, a voice called out to them.<p>

"Hey you two!"

Kakashi and Sakura looked up to see Genma sitting on the edge of a low fence before he jumped down, landing before them. "You two are never out of doors! What brought you out? Curiosity? The beautiful sunny day? My stunning good looks?" Genma asked grinning at Sakura only to have his view obscured by a dark shadow over his face.

"We were running a few errands. Just some grocery shopping and some of Sakura's dresses needed to be fitted," Kakashi explained with a thinly-veiled condescending smile hidden under his mask as he pulled away the wrapped parcel of what were undoubtedly Sakura's dresses. Genma was lucky. Had it been any other day, he was sure Kakashi would've slugged him with his knapsack full of groceries (which he was very thankful not to have been hit with. It looked particularly heavy today). "Now we really must be going. Sakura wasn't feeling well and we were just on our way home," Kakashi said steering Sakura away by her wrist, only for Genma to catch hold of her other wrist. Blast.

"Hey wait a minute. Just because you miss her doesn't mean you get to hog her!" Genma protested before turning to Sakura in a conspiratorial voice. "Honestly, the man has got it bad for you. He even named the seal that lives in the cove after you. Talk about obsessed!" he whispered. Sakura merely laughed good-naturedly. After all, he couldn't possibly know that _she_ was the seal who had been living in the cove.

"Genma…" Kakashi warned through gritted teeth, obviously not amused by the brown-haired man's teasing.

"Hold your horses, Hatake! I just wanted to know if Sakura was coming to the festival or not!" he barked at the silver haired man before turning a pleading eye to the rose-haired maiden. "You will, right? Otherwise, my arduous work putting these stalls together would've been a waste," he said, placing a hand over his brow in a swooning motion for dramatic effect. Had to sell it to bring the women in, after all.

Sakura blinked in confusion. "Festival? For what?" she asked.

"You haven't told her about the festival?" Genma shouted, scandalized.

Kakashi merely shrugged his shoulders. "It slipped my mind," he calmly replied to the suddenly-horror-stricken man. "But anyway, every year the village holds a festival in honor of the harvest moon."

"It's only the biggest event of the year! Don't listen to this old fuddy-duddy, Sakura. He always skips out, so he wouldn't know how much fun it is!" he said, silently relishing Kakashi's mildly insulted expression at being called a "fuddy-duddy."

"Is it really that much fun?" Sakura asked.

"Of course! The entire town gets into it. There're fancy lanterns, huge spreads of food, fireworks, dancing…it's great!" Genma exclaimed.

"It's happening earlier this year though. Usually, it's on the actual day of the harvest moon," Kakashi explained. At this, Sakura blinked. So that's why he never went to the festival…

"Yeah. Last year, the mayor was sick and since he is the master of ceremonies and his stuck-up brat Tatiana wouldn't do it, it was cancelled. This year, we have to do it the day before the actual harvest moon because the harvest moon fell on a Sunday."

"Ebisu is the local minister. He has a tendency to do things by the book—he doesn't like me very much," Kakashi whispered in explanation. Genma gave a short, derisive snort.

"Pious freak. 'Sunday is the Lord's Day of rest and reflection on the Holy Scripture. We shouldn't be calling Satan to our doors by celebrating pagan festivities on such a holy day' and blah-blah-blah. Personally, I think the guy just hates having fun. He wouldn't shut up about us holding the festival on everyone's day off and drowned the mayor with his speeches until he finally cracked!" Genma shouted. At this, Kakashi had to nod in agreement. Ebisu could be a bit much at times. In fact, it had taken two and a half months just to shake the man off his tail about coming to church every Sunday and another four to make the man give Kakashi up as "a soul that would not and could not be saved, even if God dragged him into Heaven himself." (Which he thought was a bit much. Kakashi may not have been as devoutly religious as Ebisu, but he still figured his soul would be good for something.)

"But that aside, will you come to the festival? If you do, I promise you'll have the time of your life! A little food, a little wine, a little dancing…Just so you know, if you do come, I humbly request to reserve a dance with you, my dear. Though I must warn you, I'm quite nimble on my feet. I might just sweep you away from your guardian and make you forget all about him," he said pulling Sakura into a spin that landed her against his chest as their arms hung poised in proper dancing form, Kakashi's gaze narrowing into a glare. "So what do you say?"

Sakura turned her gaze to Kakashi who rubbed his neck in mild agitation. "We'll do whatever you like," he replied.

She bit her lip. It did sound fun, but…

"Come on, Sakura! After all, my dear, you only live once!" he declared grandly before lowering his voice to a whisper beside her ear. "Besides, who knows? Maybe you can make Kakashi go and steal a dance with him too."

Instantly, Sakura's eyes brightened. Dance with Kakashi…?

Turning her head, she smiled at Kakashi and nodded. "Sure, we'll go! Right, Kakashi…?"

Kakashi merely sighed, making a note to explain to Sakura that one did not agree to an idea _before_ asking for permission, but smiled nonetheless. "You heard her, Genma."

"Yahoo!"

"So what else do you do at these festivals? Is it just eating and dancing?" she asked, spitting out question after question which Genma seemed all too happy to answer as he prattled on and on about the game booths they set up for the children and the contests they held for livestock and produce. The two were so deep in conversation, so enthralled with each other's questions and answers about the Harvest Festival, that they failed to notice the third member of their party slip into a non-descript shop, closing the door quietly behind him.

* * *

><p>Sakura swung her legs excitedly over the side of the bed as she turned her head repeatedly over her shoulder to look at the color of the sky outside the window. The Harvest festival began once the sun went down over the horizon. Genma said it was to make the lanterns more visible and he had even given her a spare to play with at home before the festival when she told him she'd never seen one before. Idly, she fingered the thinly-stretched paper of the orb-like lantern in her hands, so different than the flat, squashed pancake she had the day before. Peering inside through the wire infrastructure that allowed it to hang, she stared at the blackened wick of the candle inside. Kakashi had lit it for her last night, making the lantern glow purple from the colored paper on its exterior as he told her to imagine hundreds of these strewn over the village square in all different shapes in colors. Staring at the glowing object in her hands, it reminded her of the jellyfish back home.<p>

Another turn of the head. The sky seemed completely dark on this side of the house and using her memory to draw on what the sky had looked like at the beach around this time, she deduced that it was a few minutes before sunset. Throwing in the time it would take for them to walk to the festival, if they left now they would be in the village just in time for the start of the festival.

Idly, she thumbed the fabric of her outfit for the evening—a light blue dress with a black bodice—while her other hand toyed with the end of the braid the children had put her hair in when they visited earlier. As she thought of all their smiles as they weaved flowers into their hair, excited by the news that despite her weak condition that she would come out and play, she wondered belatedly if she should really go to the festival. Though she'd never been to a human festival, she'd been to ones back home and surely, there was no different between the two. Besides, she only had tonight to complete her mission because she would transform into a mermaid for the Harvest Moon tomorrow, and really, who knew how long she would stay at the festival? In her condition, when her feet convulsed and crumbled in pain with every step she took, was it really worth it to go out tonight?

But to dance…to dance with Kakashi… Her heart fluttered welcomingly at the idea. To be held in his arms, to be held against him as their bodies swayed and flew to music would be a dream come true…

Lids falling as she swam in the fantasy inside her head, she made up her mind. She would damn the consequences and pick up her mission once they returned home. Tonight, she didn't want to play God. She just wanted to dance with the person she loved.

And with that, she marched over to the back door and pulled it open, ready to go to the festival…or at least, she thought she had been until Kakashi took one look at her and asked, "You're wearing that?"

Sakura looked down at her outfit, suddenly self-conscious because really, what was wrong with the way she looked? The blue dress was the prettiest in her borrowed wardrobe; the color didn't clash too horribly with her eyes and hair; and she thought the tailor had done an excellent job with pulling the dress in to fit her better. And who was he to talk, she thought hotly as she looked at his outfit, a white shirt that laced up at the collar matched with a pair of black trousers—his go-to outfit when he wasn't fishing. In fact, the only discernable attempt she could see of him dressing up was that he was wearing boots instead of his usual shoes.

"I think I look fine," she said petulantly, glaring at his outfit pointedly. Kakashi merely sighed and covered his eyes with his hand. "You didn't see the parcel I left on the table for you, did you?" he asked with mild exasperation. Sakura, blinking, peered behind the door frame to see something wrapped in tan parchment. Curious, she pulled the bit of string holding the object together before reaching her hands into the valley of paper. Shaking the item in her hand out, she watched with widened eyes as the firelight gleamed and shimmered off the delicately-stitched gold embroidery because there in her hands was a brand new dress.

Stunned, she continuously ran her fingers over the dress that was as green as a spring meadow with darker green embroidery running throughout, letting her fingers dance over the rose-colored accents and along the swirling, whirling patterns of gold in the fabric. All the while, the same question danced in her mind. _How…_

"The tailor owed me a favor or two," Kakashi explained simply, belying the amount of money Sakura knew he must have spent to give her this gift. In their many discussions on economics, she knew how much gold was worth and the cost for it in any form was inordinately high. It was a luxury for the wealthy, and to have so much in her dress—she could scarcely find a place where there wasn't gold embroidery—must have cost a fortune. Not to mention that he'd only found out her plans to go to the festival yesterday. He must have rented the tailor's entire shop and staff to finish this on time.

"It's beautiful…" Sakura said because what else could she say about the dress, about this embodiment of how much he'd obviously cared for her. Kakashi merely smiled and waited for her to change before helping her lace up the front of her dress. Due to their difference in height, he had to kneel in front of her and inwardly, she smiled unable to help herself because she felt like a princess. This dress made her feel like she had leapt from the pages of the fairytale book Kakashi had read to her when they first met. She felt beautiful, and she watched as he carefully laced up the front of her dress, brows knit in concentration. She suddenly felt bad for criticizing his choice of dress. Her outfit must have cost him a fortune; he probably couldn't afford to buy himself anything, and in the back of her head, she wondered how they must have looked together. Probably like a princess being escorted by her tutor or servant, she thought to herself only to be emphasized later when she descended through the painted archway marking the festival's entrance. Everyone was staring at her; the children tugged at her skirts, the women were green with envy, the men couldn't take their eyes off her. And all the while, Kakashi continued to hang back, only emerging from the archway to steer her towards the food table when he thought she'd had enough.

Initially, Sakura thought she wouldn't be doing much at the festival. She knew she would join the children for some of the game booths, especially the fishing for goldfish one—she'd never seen a goldfish before and she was fascinated by them—then maybe eat a little and sit and try and make conversation with some of the women her age (now made harder by their glares of envy) before ending the night with a dance with Kakashi. However, as soon as she set her plate down at the large communal table, Genma requested his dance and soon offer after offer was being sent her way from Asuma, from the mayor, from the children, from the butcher, from the tailor, from Genma again. Her feet were killing her; sharp pins and needles stabbed up her spine with every bouncing step and spin she did. Her face was flushed; her vision had even gone double. She had scarcely sat down from her last dance when she was suddenly being twirled into her next one. She was tired and in agony, but everyone looked so happy dancing with her that she didn't know how to refuse them.

And so she skipped and twirled, bounced and spun, pulled from partner to partner as she smiled through wave after wave of nausea and prayed they wouldn't notice the color rapidly draining from her face.

When she was finally freed of the dancing area—thrown down onto a bench as her partner searched for another victim to torture with drunken twirls and stumbling steps—Sakura collapsed against the table. Her chest was heaving; her hair was a mess, and shakily raising a cup of wine to her parched lips, she wearily covered her eyes with her hand as she caught her breath and tried to pick her brain up from the jostling sea of knives and needles it seemed to have fallen in. When she saw another hand extended in invitation out of the corner of her eye, she wanted to laugh in their face in hysterics and cry, but she was exhausted and instead gave an exasperated "No more. I'm done! I'm done for tonight!" as her aching nerves wept tears of relief. They could finally, _finally_ rest.

"Really? Not even for me?" a familiar teasing voice asked. Lifting her hand away, her heart skipped a beat as she looked up into a pair of mismatched eyes. _Kakashi…_

But even if her heart was soaring high into the air, feeling untouchable—feeling invincible—her body rested on the mortal plane. It hurt, it ached. The soles of her feet were reddened from hours of nonstop dancing, every pulse they gave sending wave after wave of pain echoing up and down her spine in a symphony of agony. Every act was exhausting and painful. Her chest burned, her hands trembled in exhaustion; every nerve in her body screamed in protest. To continue this charade of normalcy in the face of such torture was an act of malice from the brain.

But his outstretched hand and open palm, slightly roughened from years of hauling fish nets and plucking arrow strings, seemed so innocent and tempting, beckoning to her like a siren's song. She wanted to hold his hand, to be wrapped in his embrace. It was just one more dance. What could be the harm in that? But her body continued to rave and rant, foaming in hysterics that she had to crawl back into the dark, dank hole she had escaped from and curl up into a ball to rest and just accept her fate. But it wasn't like she hadn't lied to her body before and firmly driving her heel into the root of her pain, she pasted on her brightest smile and let herself be led to the dance floor.

By the time Sakura managed to collect her body back into herself, the dance had already begun, the band—made of the grocer, the tavern owner, the inn manager, and the shoemaker's sons—playing a lively tune. Quickly, she threw her hand into his as he landed his right hand in the small of her back, steering her into the fast moving sea of couples in a series of light quick steps that kept time with the music and instantly made her regret her decision to come out with Kakashi as a particularly punishing wave of nausea assailed her, nearly knocking her off her feet. However, she swallowed it down, biting and ripping at the pain as she leaned closer to Kakashi to steady her suddenly swimming vision. As she did so, she felt their chests touch and felt the thrumming beat of his heart against her breast. Determined to feel it again, she began to chase after the sensation, throwing herself further into the wild frenzied energy of the dance as she spun around the square, swallowing sword after sword of pain as the bright notes of a lute and the sounds of laughter echoed raucously in her mind.

She felt dizzy; she could feel the blood rushing away from her face and hoped Kakashi didn't notice as they spun and leapt and she chased after that fleeting feeling of twin-beating hearts. Pain gripped her tightly in its fist. She was sweating and dazed—the pain at the back of her eyes, at the sides of her head was stronger now—but she pushed on, marched on as she leapt with nimble feet higher and higher into the air, soaring and landing in a sea of spinning skirts and twirling legs that kept spinning faster and faster with every note and crescendo the band played. Her heart was lodged in her throat, beating and throbbing with every breath she swallowed as she continued to soar higher and higher until she no longer felt herself touch the ground. It felt like flying. She felt like she was flying as Kakashi spun her out away from him, a laugh escaping her as her skirts floating up from her legs to kiss another, her reward a smile that twinkled brightly in his eyes as they continued to spin and jump. Her smile felt like it would be frozen there forever. She felt so light, so free, and in the back of her mind she wondered if this is how the gulls she used to watch soar overhead felt when they flew.

The song was almost at its climax; she could hear it in the way the music got louder, hear it in the thundering rhythmic clapping of those watching at the sides; hear it in the raucous laughing and bubbly giggles that filled the square. She began to giggle as well, laughing at the wonderfully heady feeling of flying, of being lighter than air as Kakashi continued to spin and hold her, looking at her as if she were the only girl in the world. It was a powerful feeling. It made her feel alive, loved; she felt invincible, and for the briefest second, she felt as if she belonged here in the human world with Kakashi until an all-too familiar sensation lanced up her spine. The pain was back, and no amount of denial or euphoria would let her forget it as the music, once gay and light, seemed now like a demented carousel of noise that forced her feet on lest she be trampled and swallowed by the dancing bodies around her.

She could feel her heart in her head, her feeling of her love pounding alongside the pain that threatened to crush her skull. She couldn't breathe. Her skin felt cold and clammy; she felt dizzy as her vision suddenly spun out of control. She was seeing doubles and triples of everything, the images fading and overlapping as wave after wave of pain crashed on top of her to drown her. She ached everywhere. Her limbs felt tight and heavy. Her body was crying out in agony, even as the song slowed to a halt and she and Kakashi stood motionlessly as the others clapped and cheered. Her body was trembling with exhaustion; her skin was undoubtedly as pale as a sheet. She felt like she was dying, and in spite of that, she was happy. She had danced with Kakashi. She had danced with the man she loved, and for the briefest of seconds, she felt their hearts touch.

Temples blasting and vision fuzzy, she drew as much breath as her tightened lungs allowed her to do and forced her head up. Waiting for her vision to focus, the world slowly ordering itself into sharp lines and bold bright colors, she stared up at Kakashi as he stared out at the cheering spectators. His hair was wilted slightly from the wet heat of the tightly-packed crowd, thin beads of sweat collecting on his brow as he gathered oxygen back into his lungs through the stifling layers of silk over his mouth. His skin was hot to the touch, and despite his attention being elsewhere, his arms still covered her protectively, shielding her from the crush of bodies. This was the man she loved, and she was thankful to have ever met him.

Sakura waited patiently for their gaze to meet, her heart fluttering rapidly in her chest as the band bowed for intermission and he drew his gaze back to her. Looking into his eyes, red and black with depths as dark and majestic as the bottom of the ocean, she caught his warm gaze and returned it with a fond look of her own, her eyes betraying none of her suffering as spoke after spoke of pain wrenched its way under her skin. As her legs began to sway slightly, hands still frozen in perfect position and trembling over the fabric of his shirt, she realized that she could hold it back no longer. She had to give in.

Eyes still holding his, she forced her pale blue lips into a warm smile as tears pricked the edges of her eyes. "I'm happy I danced with you," she whispered to him softly before her vision finally blacked out, Kakashi's horror-stricken face the last thing she saw as she fell into the comfortable darkness.

* * *

><p>When Sakura woke up, she found herself back in her room. The moon was high in the sky and stars were smattered across the darkness like paint on a canvas. Chest heaving with the blankets gathered around her waist from where she sat up, Sakura reached up to feel the hem of her dress anxiously only to find it gone wearing nothing but her shift; her eyes darted around uneasily in the darkness. What…?<p>

"You're home. I carried you back when you fainted at the festival. I took off your dress to help your breathing," a voice explained from the shadows. It was Kakashi, and a thankful smile raced its way onto her lips only to die when she realized she was the only who was happy. His eyes stared at her piercingly from his seat by the end of the bed, red and black smoldering with anger above his steepled fingers. His mask lay discarded on the desk behind him, but it still gave Sakura no clue to Kakashi's expression hidden behind his hands. The fire in her fireplace crackled peaceably.

"Why didn't you tell me you were in pain?" Kakashi asked in a tone more sad and frustrated than anything else.

"I wanted to dance with you," Sakura replied softly, wincing when Kakashi grabbed her wrist.

"Do you have _any_ idea of how scared I was when you collapsed in front of me?" he shouted causing Sakura to wince and shield her head protectively. Realizing he was frightening her, Kakashi let her go and sank into his chair, exhausted. "I thought you were dead until Genma and the village doctor told everyone that you were still breathing," he told her as he dragged a tired hand over his face, stopping to cover his mouth. "I lost Rin already, Sakura. I don't want to lose you too," he confessed, causing Sakura's heart to leap into her throat with sensations of joy and guilt. Did that mean he…?

But the sentiment was cut off as a frustrated sound escaped his lips, his right hand gripping his knee anxiously. Tiny lines appeared at the corners of his eyes and in the harsh moonlight from the window, he looked much older than what his thirty-three years of life should've allowed. But then again, Kakashi had always looked young, so maybe the years were just catching up to him? He sank with defeat into his chair. "I should've realized you were in pain. You'd already danced all night and I shouldn't have teased you into it. God, I saw all the signs too, but I…I…"

"Kakashi!" Her voice, clear and sharp, broke him from his thoughts as her hand, long-fingered and delicate, reached out to him, mollifying his anger as she pulled his hand away from his eyes. Large and shining, as bright and breath-taking as the stars, he caught her pleading eyes and wondered how it was that she could calm him with just a touch. "I was the one who tried to hide it from you. I just wanted to dance with you so much, so please…don't blame yourself."

Her hand held his entreatingly, her eyes pleading with him not to blame himself. In the back of his mind, he marveled at the softness of her hands as her fingers intertwined and wrapped themselves with his, drinking in their warmth. "Alright," he said finally, meeting her gaze to watch as her eyes lit up as brightly as the sun, and inwardly he laughed at how easily pleased she was before recounting their early days with the daily token of apples. To think it had been six years since then…

They stared into each other's eyes, content with spending the rest of the night like this. Perhaps, in a different world, they could've. Had Kakashi been made a monk instead of a man, it may have been possible. But Kakashi was made with the flaws of man, and following the moonlight that left its glowing trail down her face, tracing down the gentle curve of her cheek, his eyes spied the creamy flesh of her neck, lowering to notice that the strap of her shift was now resting dangerously low on her shoulder.

"I-I should go…" Kakashi said hastily as he pulled back his chair, the sound echoing harshly in the quiet of the room. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed the fire was now a pile of faintly glowing coals. She would be cold tonight if he didn't revive the fire, and he debated whether or not to stay to revive the flames as impropriety and the temptation of her creamy skin breathed down his neck.

He would run, he decided. She had blankets to keep her warm and it would not be a crime to be cold for one night when the fire in the other room would keep the house heated enough as to not freeze, not when staying in this room with her risked another type of warmth and he quickly stamped down the thoughts that had sprouted up from his polluted mind before they started, turning to bid a hasty retreat when a panicked "Wait" squeaked from Sakura's lips and she caught his hand to stop him.

"Why are you leaving all of a sudden? Is it something I did? Do you not like me anymore?" she asked with genuine fear reflecting in her eyes. Kakashi, unable to help himself, let a bitter chuckle escape his lips.

"It's not that I don't like you anymore. It's that I like you too much," he said meaningfully, hoping that she would take the hint and just drop the subject. But as smart as Sakura was, she could miss some very obvious things, seen when she stared him in the eyes and demanded he prove it.

Another laugh. He shook his head and marveled at how stupid Sakura could be sometimes. Didn't she sense the danger that was thick in the air or did she trust Kakashi so wholly that she was blind to the wolf ready to swallow his prey whole? "How?"

"Kiss me," she said simply, eyes unblinking as she stood on her knees in the bed. Her head was held high, gaze level with him with unwavering, unremorseful confidence. Inwardly, Kakashi chuckled and shook his head, the statement only proving her innocence. She was still so young. To her, love was still measured in actions rather than unspoken words, and it was a further warning to not trifle with her, to taint her.

But her eyes continued to hold his stubbornly as the moon struck her back, giving her an unearthly glow as her eyes dared him defiantly. Fine. If one kiss was the price to spare her darker pleasures, he would pay it.

"Alright," Kakashi said as he turned, walking back towards the bed. He cast off her hand, watching as she let it drop harmlessly back at her side as he trailed his eyes up the thin, delicate structure of her arm, letting a bit of his predatory nature slip free of its reins. If she wanted to play with fire, he would show it to her. He would show her its beauty as well as its danger and let the flame singe and burn her enough to scare. That would teach the girl not to trifle with matters over her head.

He placed his hands on her shoulder, his fingers barely resting on her naked skin as he leaned down to close the distance between them. As he did, the smell of salt air and crushed spring flowers wreathed his senses and made him shudder. At their closeness, he felt her breath hitch and felt a shiver shake up his spine. Not good, he told himself. There was more danger to him than her in this kiss. The temptation was eating away at his control; it would be best to do this quick and get it over with, and with that, he tilted her chin up and covered her lips with his own.

The kiss was innocent, just the simple marriage of skin on skin as the scent of sandalwood, salt, and crushed flowers mingled and floated between them. They could feel each other's breath, feel the butterfly kiss of lashes on their cheeks. It was the kiss people read about in fairytales. It was the kiss people dreamt about. It was a kiss worth envying for its purity and meaning, and it should've been enough to grant Kakashi passage to leave, to retreat into the next room for another sleepless night of wet, dirty fantasy and raw, aching need; and he began to pull away from the kiss when a single, soft moan from Sakura echoed between them, snapping his control.

He had snapped. That was the only way to describe it as he covered her lips once more, firmer and moaning when he found her lips waiting for her, soft, warm, and pliant. The reins of his control—tenuous, taut, and stretched thin to the point of pain—had broken. He had no control over himself anymore as self-restraint and propriety flew into the wind, the need to ravage and claim replacing it as he gripped her shoulders and kissed her with passion and ferocity that bordered on savagery. But in spite of that, of his bruising grip and predatory mouth, she continued to accept it with an innocent ardor that left him craving for more.

He pulled away from her to give her breath. She didn't know how to breathe into a kiss yet, but he would teach her that another day. He'd teach her the human pleasures she didn't understand—just like he'd taught her how to read, and write, and speak—they would practice until she understood, until her hips were aching and sore and all she would ever be able to think of was him, but that was for another day he told himself as he let her catch her breath and surveyed her dazed eyes and kiss-swollen lips with smug pride before moving down to lavish her neck with the same attention he'd given her mouth.

He pressed kisses in a line following the gentle curve of her cheek, letting his tongue snake over the shell of her ear before moving into the hollow of her neck, nipping and laving and sucking at her sweet, creamy flesh, her harsh breathing echoing in his ears and sending delicious tingles up and over his skin as he left a trail in his wake as he licked and kissed her clavicle, determined to mark all of her as his. Pulling away to hover over her, he brushed aside the errant strands of pink hair that had fallen over her neck obscuring his view as she panted and struggled to calm her spinning mind, the path of marks he left on her neck red and angry on her skin in the moonlight. Her beryl eyes, normally a bright vibrant green, were darker now as a blush the same color as her hair spanned her cheeks and down her neck, dipping under the hem of her shift.

"Beautiful…" he whispered reverently, eyes gleaming with wonder as he pressed gentle kisses into the crook of her neck, soothing her irritated skin as he inched the strap of her chemise lower. Sighing, she reached up and buried her hands in his hair, gently tugging him in closer. "Kakashi…"

At the sound of his name, whispered soft and lovingly, a moment of clarity rang out inside of him; he pulled back, blinking in a combination of shock, disgust, and horror.

"I shouldn't have done this. I shouldn't be here," he whispered to her as he began to pull away from her once more, only for her hand to catch his again, intertwining their fingers together.

"Don't…" she called out to him softly, her face flushed delicately and hair fanned out on the bed looking like an angel to him. But then his eyes would focus and the illusion would break as he caught sight the marks on her skin contrasting harshly with her pale skin, feeling more like a monster than a man. Her hand squeezed his, bringing him back from his thoughts.

"I was…really happy, Kakashi. I was really happy it was you," she told him truthfully because she was happy. It was like she was flying again because she was being held by the man she loved. Though she had been initially frightened by the intensity of his embrace after that first kiss, she soon lost that fear because it was Kakashi. To held by him, to be loved by him was more than she could've ever asked for—the need for his touch consumed her and she would take his love in all its forms, accepting them wholeheartedly because he'd shown her so much in this past week, made her felt so many things that she couldn't imagine being without his touch or smile.

Again, the mission floated at the edge of her mind, but she pushed it aside and shelved it away. She wouldn't think about it—couldn't think about it when all she wanted was to continue feeling this way with Kakashi. She knew there were going to be consequences; that she was merely delaying an inevitable, painful end, but she would deal with it in the morning. All she wanted to do right now was bask in this feeling of being whole, of being loved.

"Are you sure?" he asked her, the whisper of a torn, desperate man. It sounded like that night one year ago when she'd wounded him with her words, and she wished she could take it away. Reaching a hand up, she cupped his bare cheek and reveled in the feeling as he leaned into her touch. "I wouldn't have let you touch me if I wasn't," she reassured with a smile, watching as a look of mirth broke out on his face.

"That's true," he chuckled, recounting all the times Kakashi had tried to trim her hair on the day of the Harvest Moon (she nearly speared him with his own scissors the first time). Cupping her cheek, he smiled and pressed a loving kiss to her temple. "Alright," he told her, letting his hand trail down her face to tangle with her pink hair before gently lowering himself down to her once more, the moonlight bathing their forms.

* * *

><p>Sakura awoke the next morning, eyes staring up at the ceiling in the cold pre-dawn air. The sun had yet to rise and Kakashi was still peacefully asleep on his side where she woke to find him. Idly, she wiggled her toes again for the sixth time that morning since waking up—a routine she'd been doing every five minutes to check whether she was either mermaid or still human—and finding herself still human, wondered if the spell keeping her like this—with two separate, independent legs instead of a singular, scaly tail—would only last until sun-up before she would turn back into a mermaid. Inwardly, she sighed. She hoped the spell would last until the sun was high in the sky. She didn't want to leave wet trails from her tail in the sheets and it was much too cold for her to want to leave the bed just yet, but that was all merely a distraction and she knew it.<p>

Sighing, she turned on her side to face Kakashi, careful not wake him as she stared up at his sleeping face. Idly, she wondered how many people in the village knew what Kakashi looked like when he was asleep as she watched his chest rise and fall evenly in his sleep, his long lashes fluttering slightly every now and again. Cheek resting on her hand, Sakura smiled up at him as she traced with her eyes the straight line of his nasal bridge to the thin line his lips were pressed into as he slept. For a former assassin, he was quite handsome and somehow she couldn't equate the openness in his sleeping face to the face of a formerly-wanted felon. His face was just too honest when he wasn't awake, and dare she say it…cute.

As she continued to stare, she sighed wistfully, wishing to touch him one more time when she found her hand unconsciously reaching out towards him and she snatched it back down, pressing it firmly into the mattress before letting her eyes slip back up to his face. Nope, still sleeping, she observed and briefly, she inwardly hummed a mildly exasperated noise and shook her head. Poor thing, he must have exhausted himself last night. At this rate, someone would be able to kill him and he wouldn't have been any the wiser, she thought to herself before sighing and raking a hand through her hair, regretting ever going down that thought path because it had revived the one thing she wanted to keep denying, but couldn't. She had to make her decision right now while the sun still had yet to rise and there were no witnesses to see: would she or would she not kill Kakashi?

Sakura sat up in the bed, watching at her shadow covered Kakashi's face with no discernable reaction from him as she decided what to do. She knew it would be easy to do—over the years, she'd picked up how to gut fish and hunt animals by eavesdropping on the fishermen's conversations in addition to Kakashi's own anatomy lessons—all she needed to do was get a sharp knife and stab him in the back of his head at the base of his skull. It would sever his brain from the rest of his body, ceasing function in his lungs and heart. He would be dead instantly before he knew anything had hit him with no pain whatsoever. And the best part of it was that Sakura knew he kept a small dagger behind the books in the middle shelf of the book case in his room—a favored knife of Minato's when he was still alive. Climbing over the bed, feeling it sink slightly under her weight, she grabbed the hilt-less weapon and idly wiggled her toes. Still there, she thought to herself as she sat over him, her shadow covering him as the knife rested against her thigh. If she leaned over him to reach his neck, it would be all over in seconds. She wouldn't even have to see his face…

So why couldn't she bring herself to do it? She'd given herself plenty of time to prepare for this moment, but that was a lie. All she had done was play house and put off her mission for dancing, making things more difficult for herself.

So maybe she just had to reignite her anger? After all, that was what propelled her into making this deal in the first place and she tried to recall the devastation she felt eight days ago, the betrayal and anguish that had poured from every fiber in her skin as she wept and sobbed and moaned on the beach and into the water. But try as she might, nothing would come to mind. Not even petty things like when he had messed up cutting her hair and made it uneven, or the time he'd accidentally knocked her off her rock and into the tide pool made her anger ignite because every time she thought back on him, all that would come to mind was dancing with him at the festival and last night when he'd made love to her. She couldn't even force herself to be mad at him for Rin when it was she who had jumped to conclusions.

But didn't she want to go home? If she killed him, the curse would be lifted and she could forget all about him.

Well, of course she wanted to go home. She hadn't seen her family in six years and there wasn't a day that went by that she didn't think about them, but how could she ever live with herself after that? Live knowing that she had killed the man she loved just so she could selfishly continue on living. She couldn't. She wasn't heartless enough to do so. Not when she was so indebted to him for everything he'd done. He'd saved her life the first time they met; he taught her how to read and communicate; he taught her everything she knew about the human world—he'd given her music, he'd invited her into his home, wordlessly took her in and took care of her when she turned into a human with nowhere to go; he'd trusted her with his past and spoiled her with a dress that must have cost him a fortune; he'd danced with her and made love to her. He'd opened up to her, heart and soul, and she had nothing but selfishness and ungratefulness to show for it. Even if she did escape this village, escape this cove, she knew she would never be able to forget him. She could write it off as a dream all she wanted, but he'd been her first love—her first everything—and if she killed him, she would carry the scars from that act for the rest of her life.

"I…I can't do it," she said, her grip on the dagger faltering slightly as she sank back into the spot in the bed beside him as tears rolled down her apples of her cheeks in hot, fat droplets that slid down the dagger blade to stain the sheets. She just couldn't do it. She couldn't kill Kakashi. Not when he had friends who would miss him in the village, not when the neighbor's children would ask where their crabby pirate friend went and there wouldn't be anyone to sit fishing at the beach anymore. This village wouldn't be the same without Kakashi, and neither could she. She couldn't imagine a life without Kakashi, without his kindness, his reserved nature, his generosity. Even if she never saw him again, to live knowing he wasn't in the universe fishing and smiling and patting someone's head fondly as he taught them economics wouldn't be the same. It would be a life without living, and it killed her.

"Oh God…" She wished she could take it all back. She wished she'd never made this stupid deal to begin with and that they could go back to their old life where she was a cursed mermaid in a seal's body and he was just her fisherman companion. She didn't even care about going home anymore or being human. If giving up her memories of this week would allow her to go back in time, she would do it in a heartbeat, but she knew it was futile. She'd sworn; the deal was a deal, and now that she made her bed, she would have to lay in it. She would have to lay in it, she told herself as fat glimmering tears fell one after the other into the bed sheets.

Her mind made up, she turned to the still-sleeping man to smile at him tearfully. "I guess this is goodbye, Kakashi." And with that, she got up from the bed and went to the desk. Grabbing a sheet of paper, she grabbed the pen from the ink pot and wrote him a letter explaining everything—the deal, her anger, everything—before signing her name. Going into the kitchen, she grabbed an apple and brought it back to the room, placing it beside the unused dagger to weigh the letter down before throwing on her discarded shift. She didn't know why she did it—she would probably turn back into a mermaid soon anyway—but she did and returning the quill to its rightful place, she walked over to the side of the bed, lingering there as she drank in Kakashi's sleeping face. This would be the last she would ever see of him—or anyone—and she made sure to freeze this moment in her mind. Though she knew she wouldn't have long to live, she didn't feel at all afraid as she watched his peacefully sleeping face.

Leaning down, she gently pressed a kiss to his temple. "Goodbye Kakashi," she whispered.

And then she was gone, her bright girlish voice echoing in the confines of the empty home as she ran down the path leading to the beach behind the house, eyes constantly flicking behind her.

"There's still time," she told herself. The sun hadn't made it over the mountains just yet. There was still time to reach the beach, but she was running without shoes through the forest. Rocks were stabbing into her feet, adding to the pain she was desperately trying to ignore as her breathing grated harshly on her ears and branches slapped and scratched at her left and right. A twig lashed across her face, the pain making her miss the root in her path. Catching her by the ankle, it sent her flying into the dirt, knocking the wind out of her just as dawn began to peak over the horizon, warming up the ocean air. Sakura's eyes widened in horror.

"No!" she whispered, cursing sharply as she pulled herself onto her feet. Her ankle was twisted and swollen. The best she could do was limp weakly from tree to tree, but she ignored it. She had to get to the beach. She had to get to the beach, she told herself, only to stumble back into the ground once more as a beam of sunlight shot through the foliage, touching her calf and making her worst fear realized as she watched the sunlight begin to mend her legs together and her feet turn into a familiar wispy tail.

"No!" she shouted, grabbing fistfuls of dried leaf litter and dirt as she dragged herself towards the beach. She was so close. She recognized these bushes; she could smell the salty ocean air! But she continued to transform and she had barely made it twenty feet before the apex of her thighs disappeared, replaced by a blanket of shimmering blue-green scales. The harvest moon had worked its magic after all, erasing all traces of her ever being human. Even the red marks on her neck from last night were gone and she cursed under her breath. She shouldn't have stopped to write that letter to explain herself, even if she owed it to him—but she shook her head. Now was not the time to think about that as she began clawing her way to the beach, rocks and twigs digging under her nails, making them crack and bleed as she dragged her belly on the ground. Scales began to pop off her tail, exposing the soft flesh underneath as her chemise caught on a branch, her body sliding out from the clothing as she continued her desperate journey to the water. Every inch of her body ached. Though her body didn't carry any physical trace of her being human, she still felt the punishing burn of her old legs. Her arms were scraped, raw and bleeding. She was tired and wanted to lie down, but she wouldn't let herself. She couldn't and pushed herself onward, using the low roots and bushes to pull herself along until she felt exhaustion burn at her arms. Even if her mind was stubborn about not giving up, her body wasn't as strong.

_Give up,_ it told her, _give up._

And for the briefest second, she contemplated it. If she still had her legs, she could've gotten there faster. Her tail was getting her nowhere, and she had been a fool for thinking she could escape her fate. If she lied here, it would all be over. After all, even if she hadn't defied her destiny by Anko's rules, at least Kakashi was safe, right?

And so she closed her eyes and laid her head down, waiting for death as she listened to the world wake up. Listened to the birds sing their morning songs, listened as a wild hog mother led her piglets down the trail, listened to the low hum of bees, when she heard another sound underneath it all. Scrambling onto her hands—she knew that sound! She knew that sound!—she pushed herself onto her hands, pulling herself through the bushes and feeling relief wash over her because it was there! It was there, she shouted to herself with excitement because there only a few feet in front of her was the ocean.

* * *

><p>Kakashi woke up to the sound of the wind howling outside his window and an empty bed. Initially, he wrote it off as Sakura merely going to the bathroom but as he sat up and waited for her return, he knew something was wrong. Sakura never took this long using the bathroom. Touching her side of the bed, he frowned. It was cold and there were spots where his bed sheet was slightly damp and smelled like salt water. Her chemise was gone, and the door was firmly shut when he remembered leaving it open the night before.<p>

Pushing himself up, Kakashi scanned the room for anything amiss as a storm pounded outside his window. Something felt wrong, but he didn't know what or why, and he was about to give up entirely when something caught his eye on the writing desk. Pulling on his discarded pants from last night to guard himself from the cold, he crossed over to the small table and frowned slightly when he found his old dagger on the table. He never left it out. It was always in the bookshelf and the only other person who knew that was Sakura…

Pocketing the dagger, he suddenly saw the apple. On its shiny red skin, letters gleamed at him as if dyed in blood and he brushed it aside to read the note pinned underneath.

_Dear Kakashi, _it began.

_If you are reading this, I am already gone, but before you get upset, let me explain myself to you. Please. Please, just…read this note to the end and you'll find out why I left._

And so he read. He read everything she had to say. He read about her fond memories of him; he read about her overhearing about his former family; he read about the deal she'd made with Anko and her plan for revenge, read about how she couldn't be angry with him after he told her about Rin, read about how much she loved being able to dance with him and how much she loved him, and how because of that love, she couldn't do kill him.

_I couldn't bear to see a world without you. I'm sure the other villagers feel the same way, so I'm leaving you. I couldn't wake you up because I knew you'd never let me go, even if it meant dying. That's why I left. By the time you read this note, I will probably no longer be of this world. But it won't be because Anko got me. I refuse to let that woman rule my life any longer. I've decided to take control of my life and my destiny, Kakashi. I'm not running away anymore, so don't worry about me. Take care of yourself. Fall in love and settle down with another woman and be happy again, and never doubt that I loved you._

_Yours with love, forever and always,_

"Sakura…" he finished at last, sinking into his chair dumbly, unsure how to process it all because was this really it…? Was this really the end of them?

"No. I refuse to believe it," he said firmly as he folded the note. After all, why had she been so vague? Was it because she was afraid he'd come after her? Was it so he'd be able to forget her faster?

"'I've decided to take control of my life and destiny.' What's that supposed to mean?" he asked spitefully. If what she said was true—if she was doomed to die at Anko's hand with a dagger, how would she take control of her destiny? The only way she could foil the sea witch's plan to take her body and soul would be to…

"Oh god." Suddenly the storm made sense, but she couldn't be serious. She wouldn't be that reckless, would she? But this was Sakura he was talking about, the one wild card life continued to dole out to him again and again. He cursed under his breath.

"I have to get to the beach," he said, throwing on his shirt as he hurriedly grabbed his bow and arrows from the wall, running towards the beach past the houses, past the villagers only to be caught by Genma.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing, Hatake? In case you're fucking blind, there's a _storm_ raging right now. Even if you're supposed to be some super-bad assassin, you're not immortal now get your ass to the church basement and seek shelter!" he shouted, firming his grip when Kakashi tried to shake him loose. "Stop struggling! What the fuck are you trying to prove, asshole?"

"Sakura's out there!" he shouted, causing something cold to lance through Genma's chest as memories of the pink-haired teenager danced in his head. It couldn't be true. It couldn't be true, he told himself, refusing to believe it.

But she was the only person he knew could make Kakashi so worried, so terrified…

But still, this was Sakura, the bubbly girl from the forest who got excited over everything and had staring contests with goldfish that the village adored. She made living here interesting and Kakashi would never let anything happen to her right? She was too much of a chicken to probably venture out into a storm anyway, so it couldn't be her! But again, Kakashi's desperate, horror-stricken face flashed though his mind.

"It can't be true. She can't be out there," Genma whispered, but by the time the words had crossed his lips, Kakashi was gone, a tiny speck on the beach.

* * *

><p>Anko awoke to the sound of a storm howling outside her window, which struck her as odd since she had guarded the cove from major inclement weather with her magic and she hadn't conjured any storms for the area and the only other way for there to be a storm here was if that stupid seal girl was trying to escape the cove.<p>

Running to her window, she peered out into the churning grey water to spy a smear of pink bobbing along in the distance.

"So she thinks she can escape me, huh? I'll show her," she said as she rifled through a chest to pull out her dagger and stuff it in her cloak before grabbing a book and heading out the door to the natural rocky platform. Opening the book, she turned her head to the heavens and shouted an incantation, smiling at the water churned around her, drawing her high in the sky as Sakura struggled feebly in the water's grasp. Silly girl, she'd never be able to escape, Anko laughed as she directed the water tunnel holding the mermaid back to shore, her mind trying to think of adequate ways to punish the girl for her insolence. Laughing as she came up with the perfect plan, she threw her head back in triumph as an arrow whizzed by her arm, tearing her cloak.

"Who dares-?" But she cut herself off as she spied a familiar head of silver hair floating in the water below her. Peering closer, she smirked. So that's how he was floating around.

"So you commandeered a fishing vessel to save your little girlfriend? How quaint! But just because she can't kill you, doesn't mean I can't, Kakashi!" Anko cackled as she sent wave after wave of angry churning water towards him, watching as the fisherman tried feebly to avoid the crashing tides around him, firing arrows blindly at the woman on the rock. It was like trying to find a needle in a haystack, but still, he couldn't give up. He had to save Sakura.

"Kakashi!" a voice shouted. Looking up, he found himself right under the water spout that held Sakura.

"Hold on. I'll save you!" he shouted up at her, but how? During the time he'd stayed with Anko, all he managed to gather was that her powers were derived from the sea, but how would he defeat a body of water? Still, she had to have a medium to control the water—she didn't have enough power to do it on her own.

'_The book!'_ Closing his eye, he pulled the string back and fired, cursing as it fell short. In his bid to keep his boat afloat, he'd drifted too far away. Anko, on her platform, laughed, smiling as she spotted movement in the bushes, watching as heads and faces peered out fearfully from the foliage. An audience, huh? Perfect.

"Do you honestly think your puny arrows will be enough to harm me? That you can honestly save your little girlfriend? You're no white knight on a horse. You're nothing but a has-been assassin-turned-fisherman, and everyone—" she pointed to the people in the bushes watching as they lowered their heads and cowered, "—seems to know it but you! You must be delusional!"

"Shut. Up," he spat through gritted teeth, firing another arrow only to have it glance off her book. Damn.

"Oh, have I hit a nerve? What? You should've expected it with your useless pedigree. I heard the rumors. Your father was a failed knight and the other knights never accepted you as one of their own, so you had to become an assassin. No wonder. You can't even hit little old me. Must have inherited all your knight skills from your worthless fath—Ahh!" Anko shouted, clutching her arm as her book tumbled into the sea, the spell holding Sakura beginning to break.

"Don't you ever think you have the right to talk about my father that way again," Kakashi said scornfully as he met her gaze. The insolent…

Grabbing the shaft, Anko twisted the arrow free of her shoulder, throwing it to the ground. "I don't need a book to take care of you!" she spat, clutching her wound. Raising her arms up, she shouted to the sky and immediately, a giant wall of water formed, towering over Kakashi. His eyes widened in shock; there was no way he could escape that wave, not when it was that massive, and that was the last thought he had as the wall of water came crashing down over him.

It destroyed his tiny boat. Kakashi knew because he watched as the broken pieces were sinking slowly around him. The force of the wave had sent him reeling and tumbling into the water. He had only managed to grab a short breath before the wave crashed and now his lungs were burning. He needed air; he needed oxygen, but his body was still stunned from the force of the water, leaving him floating helplessly as his brain sent desperate repeating signals to his limbs to swim up or die. Bubbles of oxygen floated up around him and he wished he could simply pop them into his mouth before dismissing his situation as hopeless. Perhaps Anko had been right. Maybe he was nothing but a has-been playing pretend. After all, he had never been a knight—the closest he ever came to it was an assassin for hire—and now he was just a fisherman and honestly, what fairytale had the princess saved by a fisherman?

'_It was silly of me,'_ he thought to himself because really in hindsight, it was. What had he expected to happen? That he would suddenly gain all the qualities of a knight, be accepted by a kingdom, and valiantly ride in to save the day? This was reality where there was no such thing as honor or truth; where prejudice and money ruled the ranks and people could reject you from a club simply because they could. Besides, those things only happened in dreams and children's book, and he'd long since outgrown both. Now he was a fisherman, and a fisherman could never be anyone's knight.

And with that, he let himself sink deeper into the water, watching as the bubbles floated up around him and the waves crashed overhead, only feeling the current carry him away as if in a dream.

* * *

><p>He washed up, just like the prince after his shipwreck in "The Little Mermaid", on the beach. His clothes, torn and tattered, were sodden with sea water as the water gently receded away from him. It had swept him up against the rocks and looking around, he realized he was in the middle of the cove. Anko' spell had made the water recede around him; he'd landed in the eye of a whirlpool and he watched as the water swirled around him ominously, but didn't cave in, and Kakashi would've sighed in relief if he hadn't coughed up a puddle of blood.<p>

'_Blood…?'_ The thought brought clarity in his mind as his adrenaline kicked in, ready to find his injury and heal it when he was alerted to a sticky, squishy sensation under his right hand. Pulling away, he found himself staring at his organs as bits of wood clung to his throbbing organs. The crash had ripped away his skin and flesh, and instantly, he knew he wasn't going to make it and that once again, he'd failed to save the woman he loved.

"Kakashi!"

Turning his head, he looked in the direction the voice came from, a wave of relief washing over him.

"I'm over here!" he called weakly, waving her over with his left hand. Sakura dragged herself to his side and threw her arms around him tightly.

"The water dropped me off here. Are you alright? You look pale!" she shouted, making a brief chuckle escape Kakashi despite himself. She was fretting like a mother hen.

"It's nothing," he told her, hand still covering his side as he felt a warm trail of blood crawl down the corner of his lip over his chin. "But I want…I want you to do something for me."

"Anything," she replied earnestly, her battered tail swaying idly beside him. Catching her eyes, he held her gaze. "I want you…to eat my liver."

Sakura pulled away from him, aghast. "I can't—why would you even—?"

Slowly, he pulled his hand away, watching as her eyes widened in horror.

"I won't survive, Sakura. I've lost too much blood," he told her as she watched his organs morbidly pulse and beat. In her mind, she couldn't put the idea of Kakashi's pulsing organs and his inability to survive his wounds together. He looked so alive there, so why couldn't he survive?

A wet, hacking cough told her the answer to that, and she watched as he pulled his arm away from his mouth, a bright red stain glaring back her from his sodden white shirt before he reached into his back pocket. Finding his dagger still there, he wiped the blade against his pants and Sakura forced her eyes away as he reached under his rib cage, a weak grunt explaining what had happened before offering the small maroon-colored object to her. Tears pricking the sides of her eyes, she shook her head.

"No…No…I can't. I won't…" she moaned softly, eyes entreating him to not ask her again; that she couldn't bear doing this to the man she loved. Gently, he reached up to cup the side of her face and she leaned into the touch.

"Sakura, none of this would've ever ha-happened if I had been entirely honest with you. I've withheld information fr-from you that you deserve to know. Even n-now, I am d-d-doing it. I've fai—failed you as a friend," he admitted staring into the sand before lifting his eyes to her as more blood frothed at his lips. "I've got-t-ten you into this me-mess. So i-if I can b-b-be any u-use to you nn-now, it would…it would make me…the happiest person in the w-world. So p-please…"

His eyes pleaded with hers. He was shivering—his teeth chattering behind blue lips. She'd never seen him so pale, and all the while, his hand lay outstretched to her. It was taking all his energy to do so and she inwardly cursed him for being so foolish and disobeying her letter. Why did he have to come out? This is precisely what she wanted to avoid, and yet the hand still lay outstretched to her, begging her. Entreating her, and all the while, she could only shake her head in denial because how could she desecrate the body of the man she loved? How could she do this to him?

"Sakura, p-p-please…I-I've nev-vver asked y-y-you to d-do any-ny-thing for m-m-me b-b-before."

And that was what got her. Her selfishness had led her here and indeed, all she had ever done was ask things of him while he never asked for anything in return. Even when he'd disappeared to work that job to get her song, he never asked her to wait up for him. She felt guilty. She felt guilty and she gave him a mournful, defiant pout.

"I hate you," she told him, drawing a smile and a laugh from his lips. She hated him for freeing her from Anko. He could live with that.

And with that, she leaned forward to take the offered flesh from Kakashi's fingers into her mouth, swallowing bitterly as tears fell from her eyes and a ball of light enveloped her, unaware of the audience watching them.

"No! She can't have broken the curse! She can't! Sakura was supposed to remain a seal and be mine!" Anko shouted in protest, drawing murmurs from the crowd in the bushes because Sakura couldn't be the seal, right?

"This would explain why Kakashi hasn't gone down to the beach to fish and why I haven't seen the seal all week," one of the fisherman voiced, causing more whispers to ripple throughout the crowd as Genma stared disbelievingly out at the water. Sakura the human wasn't named after the seal. She was the seal, and what was more, she was a mermaid—the same one that healed Kakashi's eye.

"No wonder he'd been so protective of her," he murmured to himself. She was the reason his catches were full without him have to do anything—why he could suddenly see, and for the briefest second resentment welled up inside him, only to disappear as he spotted a small pink blob swimming towards the shore. It was Sakura, and he watched as she swam through the breaking waves, desperately pulling herself with one arm towards the shore as Kakashi floated listlessly beside her, a wispy red trail following behind them in the water as she screamed at the silver-haired fisherman. He didn't know what she was saying—the distance was too far for him to hear her—but her facial expression said it all. Hatake was dying, and she was a desperate woman who was in love with the fool.

"I gotta help them," he said, catching the attention of Asuma who had been standing beside him. "What?"

"I have to help them," Genma repeated, louder now, catching the attention of the rest of the village. Ebisu marched up to him, swinging his Bible angrily.

"Are you crazy, man? You would willingly go out there and risk your life and your position in heaven to go save the spawn of Satan? You'll just be pulled into the depths of hell with them!"

Genma narrowed his gaze and stood his ground. "Yeah well, spawn of Satan or not, they're still my friends and I'm sure God will forgive me for trying to help the people I care about," he spat venomously before turning to the rest of the crowd. "And what about the rest of you? Is the only thing you know how to do is gossip? You should be ashamed of yourselves! We all welcomed Sakura into the village with open arms; we loved her like our own and in return, she's given the village some of the brightest days I remember ever having. And now you all want to turn your back on her just because she's part-fish? You people disgust me," he said before pushing his way through the foliage. Ebisu, stunned—no one had ever talked back to him before—shouted after him.

"Now just—just where do you think you're going?" he stammered, pushing up his glasses. Genma turned to glare over his shoulder.

"I'm going after the witch. Even if I die, at least I can say I wasn't a spineless coward." And with that, Genma took off towards the witch's cottage. Ebisu, scandalized by Genma's behavior, snorted and stuttered with contempt, puffing up his chest when he felt Asuma's hand on his shoulder. If he couldn't make Genma see the light, surely he could enlighten his friend.

"Did you see that? It was that mermaid's charms that got to him. Now he's doing the devil's work and—"

"I'm going with him," Asuma said resolutely.

"Yes, you're going with him and—what?" Ebisu shouted in alarm.

"Genma's got a point. Besides, I've never seen Kakashi so worked up over anything, so if it's important to him, it's important to me too," he explained, running to catch up to Genma. It appeared that Asuma and Genma had started a trend because soon everyone was recalling an instance where Sakura or Kakashi had helped them and feeling ashamed for their unwillingness to help, suddenly rushed up the beach after them to the witch's house, leaving Ebisu to pick up the rear as he scrambled after them and encouraged his flock to do God's work.

* * *

><p>Anko cursed as she stared out at the sea, watching Sakura bob up and down in the water and clutch Kakashi as she steered them towards shore. That stupid pretender of a knight had fed her his liver, breaking the curse she had on the girl. And Sakura…the insolent brat dared defy their agreement by throwing herself into the sea to spare her boyfriend. How noble of her.<p>

"No matter, I'll just drown them both," she muttered to herself. Sakura had been right to suspect that she would go back on her word, and she was smart to make her swear an oath, but an oath was only as good as the person who honored it and Anko was a very dishonest person. Besides, even if she did swear on the source of her power, it's not as if she believed in any of that hogwash. She only kept her vow with Kakashi because he could actually hurt her, but Sakura…what could that spoiled princess ever do to hurt her? Nothing, that's what!

Drawing up her sleeves, Anko raised her arms above her head, calling upon the powers of the sea to help her as she focused on the tiny pink dot drifting further and further down the shore. She had been so focused—so consumed with the task of conjuring up her spell in fact—that she didn't notice when a fist shot out at her, slugging her in the gut and forcing her to keel over.

Her head spinning and unable to breath, Anko panted into the rocky platform before raising her head up, eyes livid. "Who dares strike me?"

Genma, ignoring the angry witch, chose to shake out his hand, flexing his hand experimentally. "You know, I usually don't make it a habit of striking women—especially pretty ones—but for you, I'll make an exception."

Pulling herself up, she wiped away the trail of blood at the corner of her lip, glaring at the man. "I'll admit that you're brave for coming up here alone, but flattery will get you nowhere. You die where you stand."

Genma merely stared at his fingernails coolly. "Who said anything about being alone?" he asked as Asuma and the other members of the fishing boat appeared behind them. Five-to-one odds, Anko observed. She could still turn the tide just yet.

"More insects are buzzing around my home, eh? No matter, I'll just zap you all!" she said, whipping the storm into a frenzy as a child came bounding up the hill.

"You'll need a bigger storm if you want to get all of us!" he shouted in a high reedy voice. Anko raised a brow challengingly.

"Oh yeah? You and what army?" she asked mockingly only for the boy's mother to come up behind her son.

"This army," she replied matter-of-factly as Anko looked behind her, the odds no longer five-to-one as she realized she was staring down the entire village. Why were there so many people for these two brats?

"N-no matter. You want a bigger storm? You got it!" she shouted, raising her arms up again before leaping out of the way as a stone sailed in the air, landing with a clatter on the smooth sandstone before she was forced to leap again as another rock followed behind it.

"W-what are you doing?" Anko screeched as she ran to avoid the falling rocks, only for Asuma to punch her across the face.

"Leave those two alone!" an elderly woman cried, the other villagers shouted in agreement. Anko, despite her rapidly-swelling jaw, threw her head back and laughed.

"Leave them alone? They ruined my life!" she shouted dementedly. "And since you all seemed to be so taken with the two, you can watch while I kill them!" she cried, pulling out the dagger to churn the waters and stir up the storm. She was going to drown them all—she would drown the entire cove; that would teach them to mess with Anko, she thought as she nimbly dodged the fumbling villagers one by one.

"You'll never catch me. I'll drown the entire cove before you do. I'll—" The words died on her lips as she was tackled from behind by Genma, plowing her face-first into the stone as the village soon descended upon her like an angry hive of bees. Indeed, that was the best way to describe it as they leapt on top of her and Genma struggled to slip out as Asuma punched her across the face and Tarou ripped at her cloak, the villagers launching attack after attack, pulling and kicking at her as shouts of "grab the dagger" echoed the cove and Anko drowned in a mass of angry, buzzing undulating bodies as fierce and busy as a hive.

* * *

><p>"We made it. We made it." That was the only thing Sakura could say as she pulled Kakashi from the water onto the shore. They were on the southernmost edge of the beach. Here was where the cove was buffeted the most from the open water and where the fishing vessels launched due to the gentle current. The waves wouldn't touch them here.<p>

"You're safe now, Kakashi. Just hold on. Okay?" she asked as she ran her hand anxiously over the curve of his cheek, her other hand still covering his gaping wound. Pulling her hand away, she felt her heart sink. His insides weren't pink anymore, instead turning an ashen grey as she stared at her hand, finding the blood she had been struggling to keep in had all but washed away with the tide. Finding his neck, she placed a hand there to check his pulse like Kakashi had taught, cursing softly when she felt the beating become fainter and fainter.

"Damn it! Damn it, I told you not to follow me!" she shouted with frustration. She knew her anger was getting the best of her—that she should be focusing her efforts on something more productive like figuring out how to cure him—but nothing came to mind as everything came to a dead end. None of the spells she remembered were powerful enough to fix this; all the human medicine Kakashi had taught her were for smaller wounds; and he would never survive a trip to the village doctor—if the doctor could even be of any help. Indeed, all she could do was keep his wound clean and watched as he died in her arms, and that was a terrible sense of defeat.

She looked at the man lying pale in the sand. His seizing had seemed to stop, his body lacking enough blood to even manage the action as the waves continued to lap at his legs. Grabbing him under the shoulders, she told him, "Come on, you can't lay down here. You'll get dirty," as she dragged him further up the shore to where a cropping of rocks shielded them from the wind at their back, gently wiping off the sand on his pants before she laid him against the tallest rock to sit up slightly, trying not to pay attention to how his head lolled to the side. Strangely enough, if she ignored the faint trails of dried blood on his lips, he looked like he was sleeping, as if he'd never left the cottage to find her. Cupping his cheek and letting her hand run down his suddenly-icy skin, she wished that could've been the truth.

"I knew this was going to happen," she whispered at last, brushing the back of her hand against the apple of his cheek. "I don't mean the rumor that mermaids can predict the future—that's a load of hogwash. If we could, I would've never let myself get kidnapped in the first place—but I had a feeling something like this would happen when I left this morning. That's why I wrote that letter—to keep you away—but obviously, my esteemed teacher can't read because he would've seen the many parts in the letter to not follow me. Maybe I should've just left without leaving you that note. That way, you would've never found me…

"But I owed it to you. You always took such good care of me—even before this week when you never had to like when you kept giving me all your apples—you could've just stopped and driven me off—and you taught me so many new things. I know botany and economics; I know fashion and medicine from your world now and I could've never done it without you."

Slowly, she sought of his right hand, forcing her fingers through the gaps as she looked at their intertwined hands. It was just like earlier this morning when they had slept together and it was so strange to think mere hours ago, Kakashi was alive and they were conjoined in the most intimate way possible. Her shoulders began to shake.

"I didn't want you to die. That's why I decided I would go out to sea, because I couldn't do it. I couldn't bring myself to kill you because I didn't want to live without knowing you were still in the universe somewhere. Even if I broke my curse—even if I returned home to my friends and family, I would feel alone because I wouldn't have you to smile at me and annoy me and cut my hair anymore. You'd just be gone, and I didn't want to live in a world without you!" she shouted as her hand continued to hold his and fat, wet tears rolled down the sides of her face. It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair. She was the one who made this horrible deal. She was the one who had offered her body to Anko, so why was he paying for the price? Why was he dying and not her? Was it so he could go out like a hero? Or was it so he could be selfish and save the woman he loved? But that didn't make sense because it was Sakura who was the selfish one. She was the one who was supposed to be lying lifeless on the beach. Not him.

Head hung, she gripped his hand tighter. "I don't want you to die…I don't want to lose you…" she whispered as tears continued to fall in streams down her face, rolling down the cheek Kakashi had often rested his hand against to fall over the lips that he had kissed. Her tears traced over her skin in the same way Kakashi had loved her, and she felt her heart break a little more as they rolled over her cheek, her lips, her neck before falling down the valley of her breasts before staining his shirt.

She continued to cry over him. How could she not mourn the man she loved, she asked as her mournful sobs and wails of remorse echoed off the rock walls of the cove, more fat crystalline tears rolling off her cheeks to fall on the man below. They fell on his shirt, staining the fabric with more salt; they fell on his arm, lifeless and numb; and they fell into his wound, the dark chasm in his body that had stolen his life from her. Staring into it, she shut her eyes and continued to weep, unaware of what was going on until she opened her eyes again and found skin and muscle stitching themselves over the wound, nearly closing it entirely. But that was impossible because mermaid tears didn't work on the dead—couldn't bring them back to life—so that must mean…

Kakashi sat up and coughed, sea water sputtering up harshly from his lips as he dragged breath by painful breath into his raw and seared throat. Blearily blinking his eyes, he looked around where he was with confusion. The last thing he remembered was being somewhere cold and dark, and he blindly groped his surroundings, feeling sand under his fingertips. He was on the beach? But maybe he was wrong? Maybe he was still on the brink of death anyway and this was what heaven looked like because it was supposed to be paradise, right?

He continued to grope his body blindly when he felt a squeeze on his hand, forcing his eyes up to be met with two shining pale green gems. Sakura…

"Am I…?"

The mermaid shook her head, not trusting her voice as she pressed her lips firmly shut and tears pushed once again at her eyes, instead motioning to his abdomen. Swiping his hand over it, he found none of the surreal stickiness he'd felt before and looked down to see a large scar over his skin. He looked up.

"How…?"

Sakura merely smiled, a laugh escaping her lips despite herself as she leaned over him, her hands running endlessly over his cheek as she whispered to him, "Welcome to the land of the living, Kakashi."

* * *

><p>Sakura sat at the beach, her tail swaying aimlessly in the water as she stared into the village from the shore. It had been six months since Sakura had her curse broken. After being brought back from the brink of death, Kakashi was brought back into the village by Genma and the other fishermen as the other villagers carried Anko's limp, bloodied body above their heads, heading into the village square. Since then, Kakashi had been resting in bed to recover from his injuries. As for Anko, the last she heard, she was still hanging in the stocks, a shadow of her former self. When she tried to imagine what Anko must have looked like—what six months of starvation and clinging shamelessly with battered, frayed threads to life—she almost always turned the thought away. She didn't want to know.<p>

The crunch of sand underfoot made Sakura look up.

"Are you sure you should be up? I thought the doctor gave you strict orders to stay in bed."

Kakashi sighed as he eased himself on his usual fishing rock on the shore, resting his crutch beside him. "What the doctor doesn't know won't hurt him. Besides, sunshine and fresh air are supposed to do wonders for patients, and I refuse to let myself waste away in bed and get fat. I don't want to ruin my figure," he said drawing a laugh and a playful slap from his female companion.

"You're terrible," she told him before turning a concerned eye at him. "Is it still tight?"

Lifting his shirt, the two looked at the large oblong scar covering Kakashi's left side. Sakura reached out to touch it, proof of his sacrifice to her. "A little. But it'll be like that for a while. As long as I keep up the stretching, it should be normal within a year or two," he answered pulling his shirt back down. Catching her staring into the village, he told her, "You know, you could go back in. They don't hate you, Sakura."

Startled, Sakura abruptly lowered her gaze, hiding behind her hair. "I know they don't hate me," she began, "but I just can't bring myself to do it. I betrayed their trust. How can I expect them to look at me the same way again?"

"I don't know. It's worked fine for us so far," he said only for a sea shell to rebound off his forehead. "Ow!"

"Don't remind me. I'm still angry at you for that," she said testily, referring to Kakashi's deal with Anko behind her back. In an effort to air out all the skeletons in their relationship, Kakashi confessed a few months ago that the client had been Anko—which he didn't know at the time. He swore!—and he'd been doing chores around her house in exchange for song lines. That had made her angry, but when he told her that Anko had propositioned him in exchange for more lines, Sakura had been livid. In fact, she refused to speak to him for a week, even as he dragged his injured body down to the beach to plead and beg for her to be reasonable and forgiving. And though she had gotten over the feelings of anger and betrayal, the fact that he had gone behind her back to (unknowingly) make a deal with Anko was hurtful—not that she should talk. She had done nearly the same thing and almost got Kakashi killed in the process—but she had to admit that she had forgiven him and their relationship was as strong as ever.

"Sakura, why don't you just come visit me? I know you've been practicing walking," he told her as he pointed his thumb at a patch of footprints that she had neglected to erase. Her face flushed with embarrassment. Ever since her curse lifted, she found all her old abilities still intact and finding herself able to turn into a human once more, she had tasked herself in training the use of her legs, feeling none of the same pain as before when she artificially split her tail with the spell. Now, she could walk, run, and dance without a care in the world, but it was still embarrassing for Kakashi to find out she was practicing such a childish skill.

Glancing up at him from the corner of her eye, she answered "Maybe," before changing the subject, bringing a familiar blue book between them. At Kakashi's questioning gaze, Sakura smiled wistfully. "Genma and the other villagers have been going to Anko's cabin to look for information. You wouldn't know it, but she actually had extensive notes about magic and mermaids. They had to clean the house—the mayor's condemned it and it's slated to be burned down later this year—but the villagers bring me anything they think would be of use to me. I sent the rest of the books to the library—mostly books on which plants and animals were poisonous or not—but I kept the one on mermaids that Genma gave me. He said he thought it would help and I've been relearning some old songs and spells, but then…I found something."

She opened the book to a marked page in the middle, his eyes staring at the text with confusion. "It's a spell that will turn a human into a mermaid. You'd be just like me," she explained watching as Kakashi's face fell a little, but she'd been expecting that and she gently closed the book. "I'm not forcing you—I'll accept whatever your decision ends up being—but I just wanted to let you know that you have the option."

At her resigned tone, Kakashi felt his heart tighten a little. "Sakura, I understand you have to go back and find your family, and I'd love to come with you—I really would. I can't imagine a life without you—but I just…can't imagine living a life that wasn't on land too. You have to understand. This, all of this," he motioned to the cove around them, "is my home too. So I don't know what to tell you."

"How about 'yes?'"

The two turned to look at where the forest trail opened up to the beach. "Genma!" Sakura greeted with surprise. "What are you doing here?"

"Well, your boyfriend over here escaped again, but he told us the only way we'd ever get him back in bed was with the entire village and well…here we are," Genma explained to the emphatic nods of the villagers behind him before shooting a wink at Kakashi. "Bet you didn't think I had it in me."

Kakashi looked at the man swinging a toothpick between his looks with exasperation. Oh yeah, he didn't think Genma had it in him. Suddenly, his neighbor came up to him, her children following her into the sand.

"Kakashi, we couldn't help but overhear and well…we all think you should go with her. Sakura's a fine young lady and you're obviously very happy with her and it's not like you'd never be able to come back to shore, right dearie?" she asked Sakura who nodded.

"We can always come back and spend time on shore," Sakura reassured.

"Right. See? You can just change back into a human and come visit us when you get the urge to," his neighbor smiled and Kakashi covered his mouth with hand, touched by the generosity of his neighbors.

"This is really kind of you, but I can't guarantee a swift return. I might not want to come back for a while, what with learning a new culture and all," he told them with a touch of shame. The villagers merely smiled back at him.

"We'll watch your cottage for as long as it takes," the mayor smiled.

"As long as you promise to visit us once in a while," said Asuma gruffly.

"And bring your children back here to be baptized as children of God," Ebisu added with an emphatic push of his glasses.

"So stop being a pansy and get with her already!" Genma said, shoving the silver-haired fishermen, sending him tumbling into the mermaid into the sand. Mind still reeling from the sudden change in elevation, he realized that he was leaning over the marine maiden. Eyes locking with his, she looked up at him beseechingly. "So will you come with me?

Kakashi blinked, unsure of what to say. All his reservations about leaving were pretty much answered by the villagers. He could come back to the human world whenever he wanted; his cottage would be tended to in his absence; and he'd be able to remain with Sakura. She was even going to take him back to her kingdom. It all worked out perfectly for him, but for some reason, he couldn't find it in him to let go of his ties to land. To not smell soil and forest air when he woke up in the morning…to not see the dawn break over the mountains would be devastating, but could he really live without Sakura?

"I'll go with you," he answered at long last, laughing as he was catapulted into the sand by Sakura's ecstatic embrace.

"Oh thank you! Thank you! Thank you!"

Kakashi was transformed months later on a sunny June day. By then he was as healed as he would ever be, and the paperwork for his cottage had been all taken care of. During this time, Sakura often visited carrying a basket of apples from the beach—for old time's sake, she would tell him—and they would talk. Often Kakashi would comment on her clothing—all hand-me-downs from the village women that the tailor helped fix up for a few herring and tuna—before the conversation would turn elsewhere. Often, they talked about what it was like being a merperson and Sakura and Kakashi could usually be seen in Kakashi's room deep in conversation about the social conventions of underwater life and the basic things he would need to know. If they weren't there, the two could be found at the beach as Sakura helped him practice swimming like she did, the irony not lost on either of them at the roles of teacher and student suddenly being reversed.

The event was watched by the entire village, everyone gathered on the beach as Kakashi waded out waist-deep into the water and Sakura recited the ancient song from the book, a light quickly spinning around Kakashi's legs as her voice brought forth more and more of the haunting string of words before she grabbed his hand and dived into the water, pulling him with her before flinging him out to the sea. Sakura watched with baited breath as she waded in the shallow water, the villagers peering anxiously into the water when they spotted a blur of silver coming back towards them and Kakashi pulled himself onto a rock to regain his breath, a shimmering tail the color of sapphires behind him. Sakura smiled.

"Blue, it suits you," she commented kissing him as their tails brush and twirled together on the rocks. And with a final goodbye to the people on the shore, they dived into the water and disappeared under the waves, heading out of the cove. As they swam, Sakura smiled as Kakashi continued to look around with amazement at everything around him because he was underwater. He was breathing underwater and in the open ocean, swimming as easily as the fish around him, and it continued to amaze him how clear and blue the water was.

"Don't get too attached to it. You might be eating it soon," Sakura told him over her shoulder when she caught him staring at a school of sardines. Embarrassed, Kakashi stiffened and quickly swam to catch up to Sakura, pumping his hips rhythmically just like she taught him.

"So now that I'm a mermaid, am I going to magically revert back in age?"

Sakura shook her head. "I think the spell just slows down your aging process. I'm sorry to disappoint you, but you'll be looking thirty-three for a few more centuries," she said kissed him quickly before catching his hand to tow him along, leaving Kakashi to stew over the idea that despite being roughly the same age as Sakura, he looked twice as old.

When his hand slipped from her grasp, she turned to look over her shoulder. "What's wrong? If it's about you looking older, don't start getting vain on me. I'll love you, even if you're old and wrinkly," she teased only to find that he wasn't laughing with her. Swimming up to him, she tangled their fingers together. "What's wrong?" she asked softly.

"It's just…are you sure your parents will like me? I mean, I did deflower you—if that even matters in mermaid culture," he said recounting the numerous times the fathers of the women he deflowered chased after him angrily. To be chased by the king of an undersea kingdom seemed like a frightening prospect. "And you didn't break any ancient rules by turning me into a merman, right?" he asked warily. Sakura blinked in surprise. That's what he was so worried about?

"Kakashi, my parents are going to love you. You saved their only daughter! And even if I did break some old unspoken rule, I'm sure they'll forgive you," she told him as she drew their bodies close together, tails tangling as she touched her forehead to his and intertwined their fingers together at their sides. At the comfort he felt in her touch, he leaned in and let the smell of crushed flowers wreathe his senses, amazed and grateful that he could still smell it underwater.

"Are you sure?" Kakashi asked her quietly, feeling as if he was in a dream as he rested his head against the woman he loved and the serene water blanketed them in its warmth. Pulling her hand from his, Sakura let her finger trace over Kakashi's toned body, letting the pads of her fingers brush over his scars—all stories of the hard past he'd lived—before letting her fingers rest on the scar that covered his right side. Looking at it with a warm, fond eye, she smiled.

"I'm sure," she told him quietly and with that, she pulled him along and swam towards her parents' kingdom, her fingers tangled with his, never letting go.


End file.
